Phoberodon Temporal range:
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Holotype skull | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Artiodactyla |
Infraorder: | Cetacea |
Superfamily: | Platanistoidea |
Family: | † Squalodontidae |
Genus: | †
Phoberodon Cabrera, 1926 |
Type species | |
†Phoberodon arctirostris Cabrera, 1926
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Species | |
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Phoberodon is a genus of archaic odontocete cetacean from the Early Miocene (Burdigalian) of Patagonia, Argentina.
Phoberodon was described in 1926 from a partially complete skeleton with skull ( holotype MLP 5-4) lacking the earbones, which was found in the Colhuehuapian Gaiman Formation of Chubut Province, Argentina. [1] Subsequent authors either followed Cabrera (1926) in classifying Phoberodon as a squalodontid, or considered it a relative of Waipatia although the genus was included in any cladistic analysis of archaic odontocetes. [2] [3] [4] [5] However, known specimens lack a periotic, which incorporates most defining synapomorphies of Squalodontidae, and Viglino et al. (2018) recovered Phoberodon as distantly related to Squalodon. [6]