New dolphin species identified

Tue Nov 2, 2010

Researchers have identified a new type of dolphin, which lived two to three million years ago, from a fossil recovered in the North Sea two years ago.

The newly identified dolphin has a short, spoon-shaped nose and high, bulbous forehead and belongs to the family of marine mammals known as Delphinids -- the ocean-going dolphins that actually include both killer and pilot whales, state-funded BBC reported on Tuesday.

The new dolphin has been named Platalearostrum hoekmani -- after Albert Hoekman, the Dutch fisherman who in 2008 trawled up a bone from the creature's skull in the North Sea.

The fossil and a model of the six-meter-long dolphin are on display at the Natural History Museum in the Dutch city of Rotterdam.

The so-called rostrum's bone is one of tens of thousands of fossils found during bottom-trawling in the North Sea in recent decades, museum researchers Klaas Post and Erwin Kompanje reported in the museum's journal Deinsea.

Latest analysis suggest Platalearostrum hoekmani is a new species whose closest relative is the pilot whale.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://presstv.ir/detail/149358.html.