Early Pliocene fossil cetaceans from Hondeklip Bay, Namaqualand, South Africa

ABSTRACT

Hondeklip Bay is a Zanclean, early Pliocene, locality in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. Cetacean fauna from Hondeklip Bay includes the mysticetes: Balaenopteridae indet. (sp. 1), cf. Eschrichtius sp., Balaenopteridae indet., cf. Plesiobalaenoptera, Balaenidae indet., and the odontocetes: Physeteroidea indet, cf. Livyatan, and an unidentified neonate delphinid. Hondeklip shares a seal and cetacean taxon with Langebaanweg, which is 430 km to the south. Cf. Eschrichtius sp. from Hondeklip Bay is the first description of the taxon from South Africa and it also has the first balaenid described from South Africa. Its cetacean fauna also strengthens the links of South Africa’s west coast with the Atlantic of Europe and North America, and eastern North and South Pacific.

KEYWORDS:

• Hondeklip Bay
• early Pliocene
• cetaceans
• South Africa
• balaenopterid
• odontocete

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Sarena Govender (assistant collections manager Cenozoic Palaeontology), Angus Rayners and Dwayne Cloete (technical assistants Cenozoic Palaeontology (AOP)) for assisting with making material available and helping to move material around. I would like to thank Kesler Randall for hosting me and for all his assistance during my visit to the San Diego Natural History Museum collections. Dr Tom Déméré for discussions about Pliocene cetaceans. Dr. Samuel A. McLeod for hosting me and his assistance during my visit to the collections at the Los Angeles Natural history Museum. Dr Jim Dines, Los Angeles Natural history Museum Mammology, for providing the extant Eschrichtiusrobustus specimens for me to examine. Dr. Mark Bosselaers for providing photos of juvenile Balaena mysticetus. The three reviewers (Dr Olivier Lambert, Dr Cheng-Hsiu Tsai and Dr Mark Bosselaer) for their helpful comments which has improved the manuscript.

Declaration of interest statement

There is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by the NRF/African Origins Platform grant awarded to author (Grant number 98834).