Herpetocetinae

N.Tamura · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikidata/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- CetotheriidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivore, suspension feederPBDB, for Mysticeti
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB, for Mysticeti
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Mysticeti
Time the record covers
At least 11 million years on record.
The record covers at least 13.82 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 11.7 ka.
66 occurrences of Herpetocetinae on record, most of them in the Pliocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
66 occurrences- Miocene29%
- Pliocene66%
- Pleistocene5%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
25 formations
- San Diego Formation20
- Purisima Formation5
- Tatsunokuchi Formation4
- Monterey Formation4
- San Mateo Formation3
- Santa Margarita Formation3
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The named rock units Herpetocetinae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. One further formation holds fewer occurrences and is not listed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Herpetocetinae and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Herpetocetinae and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
851 taxa- Balaenopteridae21 sites
- Herpetocetus19 sites
- Herpetocetus morrowi19 sites
- Mysticeti12 sites
- Herpetocetus scaldiensis9 sites
- Carcharodon hastalis8 sites
- Delphinidae8 sites
- Aves6 sites
- Phocoenidae6 sites
- Ziphiidae6 sites
- Balaenidae5 sites
- Carcharodon carcharias5 sites
- Hydrodamalis cuestae5 sites
- Isurus oxyrinchus5 sites
- Nannocetus5 sites
- Phocidae5 sites
- Physeteridae5 sites
- Squatina5 sites
- Balaenoptera4 sites
- Balaenula4 sites
- Camelidae4 sites
- Diomedea4 sites
- Odontoceti4 sites
- Otodus megalodon4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 59 sites for Herpetocetinae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
27 references- Herpetocetus morrowi (Cetacea: Mysticeti), a new species of diminutive baleen whale from the Upper Pliocene (Piacenzian) of California, USA, with observations on the evolution and relationships of the Cetotheriidae19
- The Herpetocetinae, a new subfamily of extinct baleen whales (Mammalia, Cetacea, Cetotheriidae)7
- A new marine vertebrate assemblage from the Late Neogene Purisima Formation in Central California, part II: Pinnipeds and Cetaceans4
- An outline of the Miocene cetotheres of Japan4
- Les Baleines fossiles d'Anvers4
- Fossil herpetocetine baleen whales (Cetacea, Mysticeti, Cetotheriidae) from the lower Pliocene Horokaoshirarika Formation at Numata, Hokkaido, northern Japan3
- Middle and late Miocene marine mammal assemblages from the Monterey Formation of Orange County, California2
- The vertebrate fossils of the marine Cenozoic San Mateo Formation at Oceanside, California2
- Sirenian evolution in the North Pacific Ocean2
- Some fossil tympanics from the Mizuho period of northern Japan2
- A new marine vertebrate assemblage from the Wilson Grove Formation at Bloomfield Quarry (Late Miocene), Sonoma County, California1
- Pleistocene survival of an archaic dwarf baleen whale (Mysticeti: Cetotheriidae)1
Each of the 66 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 15 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Herpetocetinae
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- N.Tamura
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Herpetocetinae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itCetotheriidae through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Steeman 2007