Odobenocetops

Art

goal for the week 12.75 hrs

today

work on the guy with the Anubis mask

Animal

drawing by Pavel Riha

Odobenocetops (Odobenocetops peruvianus) was a relative of modern Narwhals and Beluga whales. This very early member of the dolphin superfamily was found off the coast of Peru about 4 million years ago. While it has a very walrus-like head this is an example of convergent evolution it is not actually related to walruses.  It has been suggested that it sucked bivalves out of their shells in a manner similar to a walrus. Like a walrus it had tusks it is thought that the tusk were either some sort of sensory organ or that they were part courtship process. The tusks on either side of it's head were uneven the right tusk being twice as long as the left. It is not uncommon for toothed whales to have asymmetrical skulls this being just a very extreme example. It is thought that asymmetrical skulls were part of the development of sonar. Odobenocetops peruvianus did not have sonar so far as paleontologists can tell it was probably not needed to catch bivalves.