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ABSTRACT
The early Miocene is one of the least understood intervals in cetacean evolution. A new early Miocene dolphin described here, Papahu taitapu, gen. et sp. nov. (family incertae sedis, Cetacea, Odontoceti), is from the Kaipuke Formation (21.7–18.7 Ma) of North West Nelson, New Zealand. The holotype of Papahu taitapu includes a skull with an open mesorostral canal, a broad-based rostrum (broken anteriorly), two pairs of premaxillary foramina, a slight bilateral asymmetry at the antorbital notches, a slight intertemporal constriction exposing the temporal fossa and the lateral wall of the braincase in dorsal view, and single-rooted (and probably homodont) teeth. The periotic has an inflated, spherical pars cochlearis and an anterior process with the anterointernal sulcus and a recurved lateral sulcus well developed. The skull size indicates a body length of about 2 m. Papahu taitapu plots cladistically in a cluster of archaic dolphins variously referred to as Platanistoidea or as stem Odontoceti. It matches no family described so far, but cladistic relationships for comparable odontocetes are not yet resolved enough to justify family placement.
SUPPLEMENTAL DATA—Supplemental materials are available for this article for free at www.tandfonline.com/UJVP
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank all those who helped in many ways: O. Lambert and C. Gutstein reviewed this manuscript and provided useful comments; S. White for advice on Māori language and its application to the fossil; F. G. Marx for help using TNT and comments on an earlier version of the manuscript; A. Grebneff for field work and skilful preparation; J. Geisler and collaborators for making available the data matrix used here, and J. Geisler for discussions on character descriptions and scorings. This article forms part of G. Aguirre's Ph.D. dissertation, supported by a Doctoral Scholarship from the University of Otago. Field work was supported by research funds from the Department of Geology, University of Otago.
Handling editor: Erich Fitzgerald