''Diaphorocetus'' is an extinct genus of odontocete cetacean belonging to

Physeteroidea Physeteroidea is a superfamily (taxonomy), superfamily that includes three extant taxon, extant species of whales: the sperm whale, in the genus ''Physeter'', and the pygmy sperm whale and dwarf sperm whale, in the genus ''Kogia''. In the past, t ...

. Its remains were found in the Monte León Formation of

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, dating to the

Early Miocene The Early Miocene (also known as Lower Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages: the Aquitanian age, Aquitanian and Burdigalian stages. The sub-epoch lasted from 23.03 ± 0.05 annum, Ma to ...

.''Diaphorocetus''
at

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.org

Systematics

''Diaphorocetus'' was originally named ''Mesocetus'' by Moreno (1892). Lydekker (1893) found that ''Mesocetus'' was already in use for an extinct mysticete, so he renamed the sperm whale ''Hypocetus''. Ameghino (1894) too recognized Moreno's name as preoccupied, but unaware of Lydekker's paper, coined his own replacement name ''Diaphorocetus'' for ''Mesocetus''.Ameghino, F. 1894. Enum�eration synoptique des especes de mammiferes fossiles des formations �eocenes de Patagonie. ''Boletin de la Academia Nacional de Ciencias en C�ordoba'' 13: 259–455 ''Diaphorocetus'' was declared a ''nomen protectum'' (protected name) by Paolucci et al. (2019) because ''Hypocetus'' and ''Paracetus'' have not been used as valid since 1899 under Article 23.9 of the Code.Florencia Paolucci, Mónica R. Buono, Marta S. Fernández, Felix G. Marx & José I. Cuitiño (2019). ''Diaphorocetus �poucheti'' (Cetacea, Odontoceti, Physeteroidea) from Patagonia, Argentina: one of the earliest sperm whales, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, DOI:10.1080/14772019.2019.1605544

Paleobiology

The small teeth of ''Diaphorocetus'' and the bottleneck-like nature of the rostrum suggest that ''Diaphorocetus'' employed a feeding strategy intermediate between that of raptorial sperm whales like ''Acrophyseter'' and ''Livyatan'' and extant sperm whales.

References

Physeteroidea Prehistoric toothed whales Prehistoric cetacean genera Miocene mammals of South America Colhuehuapian Deseadan Neogene Argentina Fossils of Argentina Fossil taxa described in 1894 Taxa named by Florentino Ameghino Miocene cetaceans {{paleo-whale-stub