Eudelphis is an extinct genus of sperm whale belonging to Physeteroidea that lived in the ancient North Sea basin about 16-11 million years ago, during the middle Miocene (Langhian).
Distribution
The holotype of
Eudelphis is known from the Langhian-age Berchem Formation of the vicinity of Antwerp, Belgium.
[B. Du Bus. 1872. Mammiferes nouveaux du crag d'Anvers. Bulletins de L'Academie Royale des Sciences, des Letteres et des Beaux-Arts 34:491-509.]
Taxonomy
Eudelphis was once considered a synonym of the genus
Scaldicetus, but that genus is now considered of doubtful validity due to the questionably diagnostic value of the holotype tooth, and Lambert (2008) revalidated
Eudelphis, classifying it as a basal physeteroid.
[O. Abel. 1905. Les Odontocètes du Boldérien (Miocène Supérieur) D'Anvers. Mémoires du Musée royal D'Histoire Naturelle de Belgique 3:1-155][E. Kazár. 2002. Revised phylogeny of the Physeteridae (Mammalia: Cetacea) in light of Placoziphius Van Beneden, 1869 and Aulophyseter Kellogg, 1927. Bulletin de l'Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, Sciences de la Terre 72:151-170.][O. Hampe. 2006. Middle/late Miocene hoplocetine sperm whale remains (Odontoceti: Physeteridae) of North Germany with an emended classification of Hoplocetinae. Fossil Record 9(1):61-86][O. Lambert. 2008. Sperm whales from the Miocene of the North Sea: a re-appraisal. Bulletin del'Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, Sciences de la Terre 78:277-316]
See also
