A team of paleontologists found a giant fossilized skull along the shore of the Napo River in the Peruvian Amazon. To their surprise, the relic belonged to a newly described species of giant freshwater dolphin. This colossal creature swam in the rivers of the Amazon around 16 million years ago and is considered the largest-known species of river dolphin to have ever lived, measuring 3-3.5 meters (9.8-11.5 feet). Artistic reconstruction of Pebanista yacuruna in the murky waters of the Peruvian proto-Amazonia. Image by Jamie Bran. “As soon as I recognized it, I saw the teeth sockets. I screamed, ‘this is a dolphin.’ We could not believe it,” Aldo Benites-Palomino told The Guardian. Scientists unearthed the fossil during a 2018 expedition led by the University of Zurich (UZH). The new species has been named Pebanista yacuruna, after mythical aquatic beings (Yacuruna) believed by some Indigenous groups to live deep in the river. The team was also surprised to find that the ancient creature was not related to the local, living species of Amazon river pink dolphin (Inia geoffrensis) but rather to South Asian river dolphins (genus Platanista). “We [had] found an animal, a giant, whose closest living relative is 10,000km away in south-east Asia,” Benites-Palomino was quoted as saying. The newly discovered dolphin species and its relative in South Asia share highly developed bony structures called facial crests, which they use for echolocation. “For river dolphins, echolocation, or biosonar, is even more critical as the waters they inhabit are extremely muddy, which…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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