Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Cetacea > Basilosauridae > Basiloterus > Basiloterus hussaini

Basiloterus hussaini

Synonyms: Basilosaurus hussaini

Wikipedia Abstract

Basilosaurus ("king lizard") is a genus of early whales that lived 40 to 34 million years ago in the late Eocene. The first fossil of B. cetoides was discovered in the United States and was initially believed to be some sort of reptile, hence the suffix -"saurus", but it was later found to be a marine mammal. Richard Owen wished to rename the creature Zeuglodon ("yoked tooth"), but, per taxonomic rules, the creature's first name remained permanent. Fossils of B. isis have been found in Egypt and Jordan. The species B. cetoides is the state fossil of Mississippi and Alabama.
View Wikipedia Record: Basiloterus hussaini

External References

Citations

Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0