A close relative of the Amazon river dolphin in marine deposits: a new Iniidae from the late Miocene of Angola.

ABSTRACT:

Background

A few odontocetes (echolocating toothed cetaceans) have been able to independently colonize freshwater ecosystems. Although some extant species of delphinids (true dolphins) and phocoenids (porpoises) at least occasionally migrate upstream of large river systems, they have close relatives in fully marine regions. This contrasts with the three odontocete families only containing extant species with a strictly freshwater habitat (Iniidae in South America, the recently extinct Lipotidae in China, and Platanistidae in southeast Asia). Among those, the fossil record of Iniidae includes taxa from freshwater deposits of South America, partly overlapping geographically with the extant Amazon river dolphin Inia geoffrensis, whereas a few marine species from the Americas we

SUBMITTER: Lambert O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6139015 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature