Diaphorocetus

Diaphorocetus is an extinct genus of odontocete cetacean belonging to Physeteroidea. Its remains were found in the Monte León Formation of Argentina, dating to the Early Miocene.^[1]

Diaphorocetus Temporal range: Early Miocene (Deseadan-Colhuehuapian) ~23.03–20.43 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Diaphorocetus poucheti skull
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Infraorder:	Cetacea
Superfamily:	Physeteroidea
Family:	incertae sedis
Genus:	†Diaphorocetus Ameghino, 1894
Species
D. poucheti (type)
Synonyms
Hypocetus Lydekker 1893 Mesocetus Moreno 1892 Paracetus Lydekker 1893

Systematics

Diaphorocetus was originally named Mesocetus by Moreno (1892).^[2] Lydekker (1893) found that Mesocetus was already in use for an extinct mysticete, so he renamed the sperm whale Hypocetus.^[3] Ameghino (1894) too recognized Moreno's name as preoccupied, but unaware of Lydekker's paper, coined his own replacement name Diaphorocetus for Mesocetus.^[4] Diaphorocetus was declared a nomen protectum (protected name) by Paolucci et al. (2019) because Hypocetus and Paracetus have not been used as valid since 1899 under Article 23.9 of the Code.^[5]

Paleobiology

The small teeth of Diaphorocetus and the bottleneck-like nature of the rostrum suggest that Diaphorocetus employed a feeding strategy intermediate between that of raptorial sperm whales like Acrophyseter and Livyatan and extant sperm whales.^[5]