Paleontologists in Egypt have described a new species of extinct whale that was dwarfed by other basilosaurids.
A pint-size whale that lived 41 million years ago in what is now Egypt was the smallest of its kind and died young, leading researchers to name it after the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, who died at age 18.
Paleontologists discovered the whale's fossilized remains five years ago in the Fayum Depression, a desert basin near the Nile River in Egypt. After analyzing the extinct marine mammal's preserved skull, jaw, teeth and fragments of vertebrae, they determined that because the bones within its skull and vertebrae had already fused and its adult teeth were still emerging, it was nearing adulthood when it died, according to the study.
"We were lucky to have a complete set of T. rayanensis' lower teeth and discovered that it was almost-mature but still subadult," study co-author Abdullah Gohar, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Zoology at Mansoura University in Egypt, told Live Science."Its teeth had very smooth enamel, which is an indication of very soft feeding mainly on fish, squids, octopus and other not-fast-moving prey.
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