Phoberodon Temporal range:
| |
---|---|
Holotype skull | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Artiodactyla |
Infraorder: | Cetacea |
Superfamily: | Platanistoidea |
Family: | †Squalodontidae |
Genus: | †Phoberodon Cabrera, 1926 |
Type species | |
†Phoberodon arctirostris Cabrera, 1926
| |
Species | |
|
Phoberodon is a genus of archaic odontocete cetacean from the Early Miocene (Burdigalian) of Patagonia, Argentina.
Phoberodon was described in 1926 from a partially complete skeleton with skull (holotype MLP 5-4) lacking the earbones, which was found in the Colhuehuapian Gaiman Formation of Chubut Province, Argentina.[1] Subsequent authors either followed Cabrera (1926) in classifying Phoberodon as a squalodontid, or considered it a relative of Waipatia although the genus was included in any cladistic analysis of archaic odontocetes.[2][3][4][5] However, known specimens lack a periotic, which incorporates most defining synapomorphies of Squalodontidae, and Viglino et al. (2018) recovered Phoberodon as distantly related to Squalodon.[6]