Prosqualodon
Prosqualodon is an extinct genus of Early to Middle Miocene cetacean from Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and Venezuela.

Emőke Dénes · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/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
- OdontocetiPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Odontoceti
- Life habit
- aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Cetacea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
- Environment
- marine,freshwaterPBDB, for Odontoceti
Time the record covers
At least 7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 23.04 Mya to 15.98 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 27.3 Mya to 13.82 Mya.
18 occurrences of Prosqualodon on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
18 occurrencesThese 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
9 formations
- Gaiman Formation8
- Gee Greensand Formation2
- Chenque Formation2
- Castillo Formation1
- Calder River Limestone Formation1
- Fossil Bluff Sandstone Formation · Table Cape Group1
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The named rock units Prosqualodon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Prosqualodon and its relatives
MioceneWhere Prosqualodon and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
175 taxa- Odontoceti4 sites
- Squalodontidae4 sites
- Kentriodon3 sites
- Carcharias taurus2 sites
- Cetacea2 sites
- Discinisca porvenir2 sites
- Heterodontus cainozoicus2 sites
- Kentriodontidae2 sites
- Lamna apiculata2 sites
- Mysticeti indet.2 sites
- Notocetus vanbenedeni2 sites
- Odontaspis incurva2 sites
- Odontoceti indet.2 sites
- Oxyrhina minuta2 sites
- Palaeospheniscus bergi2 sites
- Paraptenodytes robustus2 sites
- Phoberodon arctirostris2 sites
- Scalaria2 sites
- Aequipecten paranensis1 site
- Aglaocetus moreni1 site
- Agriopoma (Pitarella) paraguanensis1 site
- Ameghinomya argentina1 site
- Anadara (Rasia) mirandana1 site
- Anseriformes1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Prosqualodon, 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
10 references- Echoes from the Miocene: tracing the anatomy and phylogeny of Prosqualodon australis (Cetacea: Odontoceti)8
- A review of the Tertiary fossil Cetacea (Mammalia) localities in Australia2
- Sedimentological and stratigraphically controlled preservation styles and distribution of fossil cetaceans from a new Early Miocene fossiliferous locality, Patagonia, Argentina1
- A new early Miocene archaic dolphin (Odontoceti, Cetacea) from New Zealand, and brain evolution of the Odontoceti1
- Prosqualodon australis (Cetacea: Odontoceti) from the Early Miocene of Patagonia, Argentina: Redescription and phylogenetic analysis1
- Fossil Pinnipedia and Cetacea1
- Early Miocene dolphins form Awamoa Beach, North Otago1
- A new near-shore marine fauna and flora from the early Neogene of northwestern Venezuela1
- Reidentification of Portheus patagonicus Ameghino, 1901, a supposed fish from the Middle Tertiary of Patagonia as a delphinoid cetacean1
- A whale of bygone days1
Each of the 18 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. 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 Prosqualodon
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Emőke Dénes
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itOdontoceti through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lydekker 1894