Marx Felix G, Post Klaas, Bosselaers Mark, Munsterman Dirk K
Department of Geology, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium.
Directorate of Earth and History of Life, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium.
PeerJ. 2019 Feb 13;7:e6426. doi: 10.7717/peerj.6426. eCollection 2019.
Cetotheriidae are a group of small baleen whales (Mysticeti) that evolved alongside modern rorquals. They once enjoyed a nearly global distribution, but then largely went extinct during the Plio-Pleistocene. After languishing as a wastebasket taxon for more than a century, the concept of Cetotheriidae is now well established. Nevertheless, the clade remains notable for its variability, and its scope remains in flux. In particular, the recent referral of several traditional cetotheriids to a new and seemingly unrelated family, Tranatocetidae, has created major phylogenetic uncertainty. Here, we describe a new species of , the type of Tranatocetidae, from the Late Miocene of the Netherlands. sp. nov. clarifies several of the traits previously ascribed to this genus, and reveals distinctive auditory and mandibular morphologies suggesting cetotheriid affinities. This interpretation is supported by a large phylogenetic analysis, which mingles cetotheriids and tranatocetids within a unified clade. As a result, we suggest that both groups should be reintegrated into the single family Cetotheriidae.
须鲸科是一类小型须鲸（须鲸亚目），与现代的须鲸一同演化。它们曾经几乎分布于全球，但在晚上新世至更新世期间大多灭绝。在作为一个“废纸篓分类单元”被搁置了一个多世纪之后，须鲸科的概念如今已得到充分确立。然而，这个分支因其变异性而依然引人注目，其范围也仍在变动。特别是，最近将几种传统的须鲸科动物归入一个新的、看似不相关的科——跨大西洋须鲸科，这造成了重大的系统发育不确定性。在此，我们描述了一种来自荷兰晚中新世的跨大西洋须鲸科的新物种，即跨大西洋须鲸属新物种。跨大西洋须鲸属新物种厘清了此前归属于该属的一些特征，并揭示出独特的听觉和下颌形态，表明其与须鲸科有亲缘关系。这一解释得到了一项大型系统发育分析的支持，该分析将须鲸科和跨大西洋须鲸科归入一个统一的分支。因此，我们建议将这两个类群重新归并为须鲸科这一单一的科。
