''Isthminia'' (named after the

Republic of Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

and its people) is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of medium-sized

river dolphin River dolphins are a polyphyletic group of fully aquatic mammals that reside exclusively in freshwater or brackish water. They are an informal grouping of dolphins, which itself is a paraphyletic group within the infraorder Cetacea. Extant rive ...

cetacean Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively c ...

s that lived during the

Late Miocene The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million ye ...

epoch in what is now the coasts of Panama, about 6.1 million to 5.8

million years Million years ago, abbreviated as Mya, Myr (megayear) or Ma (megaannum), is a unit of time equal to (i.e. years), or approximately 31.6 teraseconds. Usage Myr is in common use in fields such as Earth science and cosmology. Myr is also used ...

ago. The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

is ''I. panamensis'', known from the littoral

Chagres Formation The Chagres Formation (Tc)Geologic Map, 1980 is a Formation (geology), geologic formation in the Colón Province of central Panama. The sandstones and siltstones were deposited in a shallow marine depositional environment, environment and preserv ...

Description

Fossils of ''Isthminia'' were found in the

in Panama. On the basis of the fossil material, including a partial skull, the length of ''Isthminia'' is estimated to be about long. ''Isthminia'' probably had a predominantly marine lifestyle.

References

External links

* * Iniidae Miocene cetaceans Miocene mammals of North America Hemphillian Neogene Panama Fossils of Panama Fossil taxa described in 2015 {{paleo-whale-stub

Description

See also

References

External links