A late Miocene–early Pliocene baleen whale assemblage from Langebaanweg, west coast of South Africa (Mammalia, Cetacea, Mysticeti)

Abstract

Govender, R., Bisconti, M. & Chinsamy, A., June 2016. A late Miocene–early Pliocene baleen whale assemblage from Langebaanweg, west coast of South Africa (Mammalia, Cetacea, Mysticeti). Alcheringa 40, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518

Knowledge of post-Eocene cetaceans from Africa is very poor with almost nothing known about this group from southern Africa except for the diverse trawled ziphiids. Langebaanweg, a locality yielding prolific Miocene–Pliocene fossils on the southwestern Cape coast of South Africa, preserves terrestrial and marine biotas in juxtaposition. Palaeoenvironments vary from a marine shoreline to a lagoon and estuary and later a shallow marine environment and include several microhabitats. Fragmentary preservation of the cetacean skeletons suggests that they were transported before burial. This first detailed analysis of the Mio-Pliocene mysticete fossils from Langebaanweg uses the petrotympanic region to taxonomically identify specimens. Three un-named species of balaenopterid Mysticeti represent a Plesiobalaenoptera-like form, but it is premature to erect a new taxon based on this fragmentary material. The remaining material is too poorly preserved to be identified with confidence.

Romala Govender [[email protected]], Natural History Department, Iziko Museums of South Africa, PO Box 61, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa; Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Rhodes Gift, 7701, Cape Town, South Africa, Michelangelo Bisconti [[email protected]], Natural History Museum of San Diego, California, 1788 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101, USA; Anusuya Chinsamy [[email protected]], Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Rhodes Gift, 7701, Cape Town, South Africa.

Key words:

• Balaenopteridae
• Plesiobalaenoptera
• petrotympanic
• Balaenoptera
• Varswater Formation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgements

The work was done in part during RG’s postdoctoral fellowship at UCT funded by Claude Leon Foundation (2010–August 2011). RG thanks the Cenozoic Collections staff at Iziko South African Museum for their assistance. We thank Dr O. Lambert from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Bruxelles for photographs of the plates of Megaptera affinis from Van Beneden (1882). RG thanks Dr P.B. Best for his help during the initial stages of this project and Dr D. Thomas for his advice. RG thanks Mr D. Ohland and Mr N. Fouten for their assistance with the extant cetacean taxa house at Iziko South African Museum, Cape Town. We thank Erich Fitzgerald and Oliver Hampe for their constructive comments; Stephen McLoughlin (Alcheringa Editor in Chief) and Ben Kear (Assistant Editor) provided comments on the manuscript helping to improve its quality and clarity. The authors contributed equally to this work.