Neobalaenidae is a
family
Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
of
baleen whale
Baleen whales (), also known as whalebone whales, are marine mammals of the order (biology), parvorder Mysticeti in the infraorder Cetacea (whales, dolphins and porpoises), which use baleen plates (or "whalebone") in their mouths to sieve plankt ...
s (suborder
Mysticeti
Baleen whales (), also known as whalebone whales, are marine mammals of the parvorder Mysticeti in the infraorder Cetacea (whales, dolphins and porpoises), which use baleen plates (or "whalebone") in their mouths to sieve plankton from the wate ...
) including the extant pygmy right whale. Although traditionally considered related to balaenids, recent studies by Fordyce and Marx (2013) and Ludovic Dutoit and colleagues (2023) have recovered the living
pygmy right whale
The pygmy right whale (''Caperea marginata'') is a species of baleen whale. It may be a member of the cetotheres, a family of baleen whales which until 2012 were thought to be extinct; ''C. marginata'' has otherwise been considered the sole m ...
as a member of
Cetotheriidae
Cetotheriidae is a family of baleen whales (parvorder Mysticeti). The family is known to have existed from the Late Oligocene to the Early Pleistocene before going extinct. Although some phylogenetic studies conducted by recovered the living py ...
, making it the only extant cetotheriid. Not all authors agree with this placement.
Taxonomy
The family Neobalaenidae was long restricted to the pygmy right whale from the Southern Hemisphere due to the unusual skeletal form of the species relative to other extant mysticetes. Until the early 2010s Neobalaenidae was unknown from the fossil record despite a study by Sasaki et al. (2005) placing the divergence date of Neobalaenidae from other living baleen whales at 23 mya.
Fordyce and Marx found that the pygmy right whale formed a well-supported clade with Eschrichtiidae and Balaenopteridae based on molecular data, and that, within 'cetotheres', it was most closely related to the herpetocetines (''
Herpetocetus
''Herpetocetus'' is a genus of cetotheriid mysticete in the subfamily Herpetocetinae. Considerably smaller than modern baleen whales, ''Herpetocetus'' measured only 3 to 4 meters in length. Boessenecker, R.W. 2013. Pleistocene survival of an ar ...
'' and ''
Nannocetus''), rendering the pygmy right whale the only living species of Cetotheriidae. Around the same time, Bisconti had described the first pygmy right whale from the fossil record, ''
Miocaperea
''Miocaperea'' is an extinct genus of pygmy right whale from the Late Miocene Pisco Formation of Peru.[Pisco Formation
The Pisco Formation is a geologic formation located in Peru, on the southern coastal desert of Ica, Peru, Ica and Arequipa. The approximately thick formation was deposited in the Pisco Basin, spanning an age from the Miocene, Late Miocene up to t ...]
of Peru. Bisconti, however, found, based on morphological data, it to be more closely related to
Balaenidae
Balaenidae () is a Family (biology), family of whales of the parvorder Mysticeti (baleen whales) that contains mostly fossil taxa and two living genera: the right whale (genus ''Eubalaena''), and the closely related bowhead whale (genus ''Balaena ...
(the bowhead and right whales), but added that additional specimens are expected to resolve these conflicting results within a few years. Cladistic analyses by Gol'din and Steeman partly agreed with Fordyce and Marx in recovering neobalaenids as closer to cetotheres than to Balaenidae, but disagreed with their recovery of the pygmy right whale as a herpetocetine, instead recovering Neobalaenidae outside Cetotheriidae.
Fossil record
Examples of Neobalaenidae in the fossil record include ''Miocaperea'', a couple of indeterminate earbones from Australia (one similar to ''Caperea''), and specimens from Pleistocene localities in the Northern Hemisphere.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q9049302
Baleen whales
Mammal families
Extant Tortonian first appearances