A Miocene relative of the Ganges River dolphin (Odontoceti, Platanistidae) from the Amazonian Basin

Abstract

A new fossil platanistine (Cetacea, Platanistidae) specimen is described: a periotic from the middle Miocene of Peruvian Amazonia. This highly diagnostic ear bone provides insights on the shifts to freshwater environments by various odontocete clades, a phenomenon probably underestimated due to the lack of fossils from the freshwater sedimentary record, and probably not just limited to extant clades of freshwater odontocetes