''Simocetus'' (from ''simus'', "pug-nosed", and ''cetus'', "whale") is an extinct genus of

toothed whale The toothed whales (also called odontocetes, systematic name Odontoceti) are a parvorder of cetaceans that includes dolphins, porpoises, and all other whales possessing teeth, such as the beaked whales and sperm whales. Seventy-three species of t ...

that lived during the

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the ...

period, approximately , making it the oldest named toothed whale, although older unnamed toothed whales exist. ''Simocetus'' is known from a single fossil, a skull, found in marine siltstone deposits of the Alsea Formation on the banks of

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

Yaquina River The Yaquina River ( ) is a stream, long, on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of Oregon. It drains an area of the Central Oregon Coast Range west of the Willamette Valley near Newport. It rises in the mountains west of Corvallis along the c ...

in 1977 by fossil hunter of the region,

Douglas Emlong Douglas Ralph Emlong (April 17, 1942–June 1980) was an amateur fossil collector from the Oregon Coast in the northwestern United States. His collections contributed to the discovery and description of numerous extinct marine mammal species, man ...

. It was first named by

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

Ewan Fordyce Ewan is an anglicisation of the Scottish Gaelic name Eòghann. It is possibly a derivative of the Pictish name, ''Vuen'' (or 'Wen'), "The Warrior" or "born of the mountain". It is most common as a male given name in Scotland and Canada. It is a ...

in 2002 and contains a single species, ''S. rayi''. He found its teeth and jaw different from any other known whale's, and thought it might have been a bottom feeder that fed by suction on marine invertebrates. Features of the basicranium and face suggest that ''Simocetus'' may have had comparable echolocation abilities to modern whales.

References

External links

''Simocetus'' at The Paleobiology Database
Prehistoric toothed whales Oligocene cetaceans Prehistoric cetacean genera Rupelian life Oligocene mammals of North America Whitneyan Paleontology in Oregon Fossil taxa described in 2002 {{paleo-whale-stub zh:艾什歐鯨