Numataphocoena yamashitai ヌマタネズミイルカぬまたねずみいるか

Description

These are fossils of a small toothed whale that lived around four million years ago (in the Pliocene period during the Cenozoic era). They are fossils of the first family Phocoenidae that were recorded as a new genus and species in Japan. The fossilized toothed whale belongs to a group that branched off from the group of extant porpoises in the distant past, making the fossils essential for exploring the evolutionary history of the family Phocoenidae. Because the fossils are those of nearly the entire body and are incomparably well preserved, they have been often cited in scholarly papers on fossilization and are of high academic value.