Cynthiacetus

Cynthiacetus (†Cynthiacetus (Uhen 2005))

 

Order: Artiodactyla

Infraorder: Cetacea

Family: †Basilosauridae

Subfamily: †Dorudontinae

Time period:  lived 40 to 39 million years ago in the Late Eocene (North and South America)

Size: Body length of 9 metres.

A typical representative: Cynthiacetus maxwelli

 

 

Cynthiacetus is an extinct genus of basilosaurid, was named after the town of Cynthia, Mississippi, close to where the type specimen for the species C. maxwelli was discovered.

The skull of C. maxwelli was similar in size and morphology to that of Basilosaurus cetoides, but Cynthiacetus lacked the elongated vertebrae of Basilosaurus. 

The South American species C. peruvianus, the first archaeocete to be described on that continent, mainly differs from C. maxwelli in the number of cuspids in the lower premolars, but it also has the greatest numbers of thoracic vertebrae (20). The type specimen of C. peruvianus belonged to an adult individual measuring 9 m  long.