''Vampalus'' is a genus of cetotheriid

mysticete 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 water ...

from Miocene (

Tortonian The Tortonian is in the geologic time scale an age or stage of the late Miocene that spans the time between 11.608 ± 0.005 Ma and 7.246 ± 0.005 Ma (million years ago). It follows the Serravallian and is followed by the Messinian. The Tort ...

) marine deposits in the Russian

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

.K. K. Tarasenko and A. V. Lopatin. 2012. New Baleen Whale Genera (Cetacea, Mammalia) from the Miocene of the Northern Caucasus and Ciscaucasia: 2. Vampalus gen. nov. from the Middle–Late Miocene of Chechnya and Krasnodar Region. ''Palaeontological Journal'' 46(6):620-629 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 ...

, ''V. sayasanicus'', is based on PIN 5341/1, a complete skeleton. The cetotheriid '' Eucetotherium helmersonii'' was mistakenly assigned to ''Vampalus'' by Tarasenko and Lopatin, who were unaware that Kellogg (1931) fixed ''"Cetotherium" helmersonii'' as the ''Eucetotherium'' type species.

References

Cetotheriidae Miocene cetaceans Monotypic prehistoric cetacean genera Fossil taxa described in 2012 Miocene mammals of Europe {{Paleo-whale-stub