''Balaenula'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

cetacea Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel them ...

Taxonomy

Cladistic analyses of fossils and extant balaenids place ''Balaenula'' as the sister taxon of right whales in a clade separate from the

bowhead whale The bowhead whale (''Balaena mysticetus'') is a species of baleen whale belonging to the family Balaenidae and the only living representative of the genus ''Balaena''. They are the only baleen whale endemic to the Arctic and subarctic waters, ...

Fossil records

This genus is known in the

fossil record A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

s from the

Neogene The Neogene ( ), informally Upper Tertiary or Late Tertiary, is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period Mya. ...

to the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

(age range: from 11.608 to 1.806 million years ago). Fossils are found in the marine strata of

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, United Kingdom, United States, the Netherlands, France and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

.M. Bisconti. 2003. Evolutionary history of Balaenidae. Craniium 20(1):9-50Paleobiology Database
/ref> The most complete specimen known from the U.S. (as well as the only one on display in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

) was found at

Lake Waccamaw Lake Waccamaw is a fresh water lake located in Columbus County in North Carolina. It is the largest of the natural Carolina Bay lakes. Although bay trees (''Magnolia virginiana L.'', ''Gordonia lasianthus Ellis'', and ''Persea'') are present w ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

in 2008. The whale's skull was excavated from the limestone outcropping by the state's

Underwater Archaeology Branch The Underwater Archaeology Branch (UAB) of the Naval History & Heritage Command (NHHC) is a unit of the United States Department of the Navy. It was formally founded in 1996 as a consequence of the emerging need to manage, study, conserve, and cu ...

, prepared, and permanently displayed at the Lake Waccamaw Depot Museum starting 2012.

Species

There are two currently recognized species of ''Balaenula'': *†''Balaenula balaenopsis'' Van Beneden, 1872 ( Type) *†''Balaenula astensis'' Trevisan, 1942 (from Italy) ''B. astensis'' was quite similar to the living right whale (''

Eubalaena glacialis Right whales are three species of large baleen whales of the genus ''Eubalaena'': the North Atlantic right whale (''E. glacialis''), the North Pacific right whale (''E. japonica'') and the Southern right whale (''E. australis''). They are class ...

'') but much smaller, reaching a length of about . This species lived around four million years ago. Fossils have been found near Asti (Northern Italy), in a Zanclean/Piacenzian marine sandstone. The only known specimen of ''B. balaenopsis'' was discovered in Belgium in the late 1800s. An unnamed species from Japan (represented by a partial skeleton) is also known.M. Oishi and Y. Hasegawa. 1995. A list of fossil cetaceans in Japan. The Island Arc 3:493-505

References

Prehistoric cetacean genera Fossil taxa described in 1872 Pliocene cetaceans Balaenidae {{paleo-whale-stub