Can anyone describe the anatomy of Perucetus colossus, just published in
Nature, a middle Eocene whale claimed to be bigger than a blue whale? An
artist's conception shows it with a forelimb apparently with free
digits, being used to support the body above the sea floor.

On 8/2/23 9:34 PM, John Harshman wrote:
> Can anyone describe the anatomy of Perucetus colossus, just published in
> Nature, a middle Eocene whale claimed to be bigger than a blue whale? An
> artist's conception shows it with a forelimb apparently with free
> digits, being used to support the body above the sea floor.

Still can't see the article, but the public bits do include hints that
the only actual material includes only vertebrae and ribs, and the rest
of the skeleton is reconstructed based on presumed relatives. The tail
is even based on extant manatees. So, a bit of press release hype.

On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 9:27:02 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/2/23 9:34 PM, John Harshman wrote:
> > Can anyone describe the anatomy of Perucetus colossus, just published in
> > Nature, a middle Eocene whale claimed to be bigger than a blue whale? An
> > artist's conception shows it with a forelimb apparently with free
> > digits, being used to support the body above the sea floor.
> Still can't see the article, but the public bits do include hints that
> the only actual material includes only vertebrae and ribs, and the rest
> of the skeleton is reconstructed based on presumed relatives. The tail
> is even based on extant manatees. So, a bit of press release hype.

It isn't hard to get popular press articles, and it's also easy to the Nature connection:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06381-1.epdf?sharing_token=Km5bbE-eJJvo8mP-KmOLB9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pf_L6EYDYzR4YFKG3Aq8XzhCL-3NJFD3RlneHc9W_lt_6PQIXq0jLItmS3TbqH821xHn-LaTCXmsE4MGntzdBQRfFxe298jhlfUtBVbyE-x7uB7aH5VwT-4Y_K-lf-a-NB01Mov-FphQZ7HL6VlnC43Icnq8oDHLFKlxAl3o57ToObsIqf7HdMI9GUvv8oplw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.usatoday.com

The fossil is of some ribs and backbone, and they're extremely big and heavy. No evidence for what the skull or limbs were like, so body mass estimates are just that: estimates. It may likely be as big as a blue whate, or at least comparable. News sources really went to town.

On 8/4/23 12:49 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 9:27:02 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/2/23 9:34 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>>> Can anyone describe the anatomy of Perucetus colossus, just published in
>>> Nature, a middle Eocene whale claimed to be bigger than a blue whale? An
>>> artist's conception shows it with a forelimb apparently with free
>>> digits, being used to support the body above the sea floor.
>> Still can't see the article, but the public bits do include hints that
>> the only actual material includes only vertebrae and ribs, and the rest
>> of the skeleton is reconstructed based on presumed relatives. The tail
>> is even based on extant manatees. So, a bit of press release hype.
>
> It isn't hard to get popular press articles, and it's also easy to the Nature connection:
>
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06381-1.epdf?sharing_token=Km5bbE-eJJvo8mP-KmOLB9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pf_L6EYDYzR4YFKG3Aq8XzhCL-3NJFD3RlneHc9W_lt_6PQIXq0jLItmS3TbqH821xHn-LaTCXmsE4MGntzdBQRfFxe298jhlfUtBVbyE-x7uB7aH5VwT-4Y_K-lf-a-NB01Mov-FphQZ7HL6VlnC43Icnq8oDHLFKlxAl3o57ToObsIqf7HdMI9GUvv8oplw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.usatoday.com
>
> The fossil is of some ribs and backbone, and they're extremely big and heavy. No evidence for what the skull or limbs were like, so body mass estimates are just that: estimates. It may likely be as big as a blue whate, or at least comparable. News sources really went to town.

You don't get into Nature without hype.

On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 1:20:22 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/4/23 12:49 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 9:27:02 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 8/2/23 9:34 PM, John Harshman wrote:
> >>> Can anyone describe the anatomy of Perucetus colossus, just published in
> >>> Nature, a middle Eocene whale claimed to be bigger than a blue whale? An
> >>> artist's conception shows it with a forelimb apparently with free
> >>> digits, being used to support the body above the sea floor.
> >> Still can't see the article, but the public bits do include hints that
> >> the only actual material includes only vertebrae and ribs, and the rest
> >> of the skeleton is reconstructed based on presumed relatives. The tail
> >> is even based on extant manatees. So, a bit of press release hype.
> >
> > It isn't hard to get popular press articles, and it's also easy to the Nature connection:
> >
> > https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06381-1.epdf?sharing_token=Km5bbE-eJJvo8mP-KmOLB9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pf_L6EYDYzR4YFKG3Aq8XzhCL-3NJFD3RlneHc9W_lt_6PQIXq0jLItmS3TbqH821xHn-LaTCXmsE4MGntzdBQRfFxe298jhlfUtBVbyE-x7uB7aH5VwT-4Y_K-lf-a-NB01Mov-FphQZ7HL6VlnC43Icnq8oDHLFKlxAl3o57ToObsIqf7HdMI9GUvv8oplw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.usatoday.com
> >
> > The fossil is of some ribs and backbone, and they're extremely big and heavy. No evidence for what the skull or limbs were like, so body mass estimates are just that: estimates. It may likely be as big as a blue whate, or at least comparable. News sources really went to town.
> You don't get into Nature without hype.

You can get in with certain (UK) credentials as well. Wickramasighe is a recent example.

On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 3:49:17 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 9:27:02 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> > On 8/2/23 9:34 PM, John Harshman started his first on-topic thread to s..b.p. that I recall
ever seeing.

> > > Can anyone describe the anatomy of Perucetus colossus, just published in
> > > Nature, a middle Eocene whale claimed to be bigger than a blue whale? An
> > > artist's conception shows it with a forelimb apparently with free
> > > digits, being used to support the body above the sea floor.

The artist's conception in the article does not show the digits to be free: the
body outline includes them.

> > Still can't see the article, but the public bits do include hints that
> > the only actual material includes only vertebrae and ribs, and the rest
> > of the skeleton is reconstructed based on presumed relatives. The tail
> > is even based on extant manatees.

There is a tiny notch in the middle in Fig. 2. of the linked article below.

Strangely enough, a web search for "manatee tail" gave less than 5% photographs
showing a complete tail. Yet it is the quickest and easiest way to tell a manatee from a dugong.

> So, a bit of press release hype.
> It isn't hard to get popular press articles, and it's also easy to the Nature connection:
>
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06381-1.epdf?sharing_token=Km5bbE-eJJvo8mP-KmOLB9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pf_L6EYDYzR4YFKG3Aq8XzhCL-3NJFD3RlneHc9W_lt_6PQIXq0jLItmS3TbqH821xHn-LaTCXmsE4MGntzdBQRfFxe298jhlfUtBVbyE-x7uB7aH5VwT-4Y_K-lf-a-NB01Mov-FphQZ7HL6VlnC43Icnq8oDHLFKlxAl3o57ToObsIqf7HdMI9GUvv8oplw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.usatoday.com

First, I got a column of tiny reproductions of the pages that I was unable to magnify.
However, clicking a seemingly dead view-page button, I got a great webpage showing the article
and a note that I have access through the University of South Carolina library system.

> The fossil is of some ribs and backbone, and they're extremely big and heavy. No evidence for what the skull or limbs were like, so body mass estimates are just that: estimates. It may likely be as big as a blue whate, or at least comparable. News sources really went to town.

The artist's conception on Fig. 2 makes it out to be substantially smaller, in the usual sense,
than the blue whale on the same illustration. However, where weight is concerned,
the abstract says,

"We use the skeletal fraction to estimate the body mass of P. colossus, which proves to be a contender for the title of heaviest animal on record."

In fact, the article seems to emphasize a condition that a certain insufferable self-advertiser
in s.b.p. and t.o. has advanced for a "waterside hypothesis" for proximal ancestors of *Homo*: pachyostosis.

"The adaptations of shallow-diving, slow-swimming species often comprise bone mass increase (BMI). This is produced by the infilling of the inner cavities of skeletal elements with compact bone (that is, osteosclerosis) and, in the more extreme cases, by additional deposition of bone on their external surface5 (that is, pachyostosis sensu stricto). BMI is documented in cetaceans’ amphibious close relatives11, as well as early members of the clade, the basilosaurids in particular. Extant cetaceans have conversely acquired an entirely different bone microanatomy, with an osteoporotic-like structure typical of pelagic, secondarily aquatic tetrapods with more active swimming. Basilosaurids are therefore unique in the sense that they acquired large sizes (up to around 20 m in body length3) and BMI. The degree of their BMI nevertheless did not match, up until now, that of some sirenians, for example, of which the whole rib cage is both strongly osteosclerotic and pachyostotic5.

"Here we describe a basilosaurid whale that substantially pushes the upper limit of skeletal mass in mammals, as well as in aquatic vertebrates in general. This early whale combines a gigantic size and, to our knowledge, the strongest degree of BMI known to date. It also potentially represents the heaviest animal ever described."

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 8/7/23 9:53 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 3:49:17 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>> On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 9:27:02 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
>>> On 8/2/23 9:34 PM, John Harshman started his first on-topic thread to s.b.p. that I recall
> ever seeing.
>
>>>> Can anyone describe the anatomy of Perucetus colossus, just published in
>>>> Nature, a middle Eocene whale claimed to be bigger than a blue whale? An
>>>> artist's conception shows it with a forelimb apparently with free
>>>> digits, being used to support the body above the sea floor.
>
> The artist's conception in the article does not show the digits to be free: the
> body outline includes them.
We must be looking at different artist's conceptions. The one I'm
looking at is not in the Nature article.
This one:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/02/world/ancient-colossal-whale-perucetus-colossus-scn/index.html
>>> Still can't see the article, but the public bits do include hints that
>>> the only actual material includes only vertebrae and ribs, and the rest
>>> of the skeleton is reconstructed based on presumed relatives. The tail
>>> is even based on extant manatees.
>
> There is a tiny notch in the middle in Fig. 2. of the linked article below.
Note that the tail is entirely conjectural. The actual material consists
of some thoracic vertebrae, a few ribs, and a piece of the pelvis.
> Strangely enough, a web search for "manatee tail" gave less than 5% photographs
> showing a complete tail. Yet it is the quickest and easiest way to tell a manatee from a dugong.
>
>
>> So, a bit of press release hype.
>> It isn't hard to get popular press articles, and it's also easy to the Nature connection:
>>
>> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06381-1.epdf?sharing_token=Km5bbE-eJJvo8mP-KmOLB9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pf_L6EYDYzR4YFKG3Aq8XzhCL-3NJFD3RlneHc9W_lt_6PQIXq0jLItmS3TbqH821xHn-LaTCXmsE4MGntzdBQRfFxe298jhlfUtBVbyE-x7uB7aH5VwT-4Y_K-lf-a-NB01Mov-FphQZ7HL6VlnC43Icnq8oDHLFKlxAl3o57ToObsIqf7HdMI9GUvv8oplw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.usatoday.com
>
> First, I got a column of tiny reproductions of the pages that I was unable to magnify.
> However, clicking a seemingly dead view-page button, I got a great webpage showing the article
> and a note that I have access through the University of South Carolina library system.
>
>> The fossil is of some ribs and backbone, and they're extremely big and heavy. No evidence for what the skull or limbs were like, so body mass estimates are just that: estimates. It may likely be as big as a blue whate, or at least comparable. News sources really went to town.
>
> The artist's conception on Fig. 2 makes it out to be substantially smaller, in the usual sense,
> than the blue whale on the same illustration. However, where weight is concerned,
> the abstract says,
>
> "We use the skeletal fraction to estimate the body mass of P. colossus, which proves to be a contender for the title of heaviest animal on record."
>
> In fact, the article seems to emphasize a condition that a certain insufferable self-advertiser
> in s.b.p. and t.o. has advanced for a "waterside hypothesis" for proximal ancestors of *Homo*: pachyostosis.
>
> "The adaptations of shallow-diving, slow-swimming species often comprise bone mass increase (BMI). This is produced by the infilling of the inner cavities of skeletal elements with compact bone (that is, osteosclerosis) and, in the more extreme cases, by additional deposition of bone on their external surface5 (that is, pachyostosis sensu stricto). BMI is documented in cetaceans’ amphibious close relatives11, as well as early members of the clade, the basilosaurids in particular. Extant cetaceans have conversely acquired an entirely different bone microanatomy, with an osteoporotic-like structure typical of pelagic, secondarily aquatic tetrapods with more active swimming. Basilosaurids are therefore unique in the sense that they acquired large sizes (up to around 20 m in body length3) and BMI. The degree of their BMI nevertheless did not match, up until now, that of some sirenians, for example, of which the whole rib cage is both strongly osteosclerotic and pachyostotic5.
>
> "Here we describe a basilosaurid whale that substantially pushes the upper limit of skeletal mass in mammals, as well as in aquatic vertebrates in general. This early whale combines a gigantic size and, to our knowledge, the strongest degree of BMI known to date. It also potentially represents the heaviest animal ever described."
So habit is inferred from bone density to conclude a niche unlike
anything known in extant whales. Could be.

On 8/4/23 09:26, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/2/23 9:34 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>> Can anyone describe the anatomy of Perucetus colossus, just published
>> in Nature, a middle Eocene whale claimed to be bigger than a blue
>> whale? An artist's conception shows it with a forelimb apparently with
>> free digits, being used to support the body above the sea floor.
>
> Still can't see the article, but the public bits do include hints that
> the only actual material includes only vertebrae and ribs, and the rest
> of the skeleton is reconstructed based on presumed relatives. The tail
> is even based on extant manatees. So, a bit of press release hype.

I get the idea that this guy might have been so old that
it might not have echolated a target like the modern grey
whale before diving.

Maybe it could just hold its breath for a longer period of
time?

what would be cool is if you could find something on the
formation of sonar among the cetaceans in general. Please
post if you could find something.

On 8/7/23 8:27 PM, Trolidan7 wrote:
> On 8/4/23 09:26, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/2/23 9:34 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>>> Can anyone describe the anatomy of Perucetus colossus, just published
>>> in Nature, a middle Eocene whale claimed to be bigger than a blue
>>> whale? An artist's conception shows it with a forelimb apparently
>>> with free digits, being used to support the body above the sea floor.
>>
>> Still can't see the article, but the public bits do include hints that
>> the only actual material includes only vertebrae and ribs, and the
>> rest of the skeleton is reconstructed based on presumed relatives. The
>> tail is even based on extant manatees. So, a bit of press release hype.
>
> I get the idea that this guy might have been so old that
> it might not have echolated a target like the modern grey
> whale before diving.
>
> Maybe it could just hold its breath for a longer period of
> time?
>
> what would be cool is if you could find something on the
> formation of sonar among the cetaceans in general.  Please
> post if you could find something.
>
The main fossil indicator of echolocation is a hollow in the skull to
accommodate the melon. Basilosaurids clearly didn't have one. More than
that I don't know.

On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 1:15:01 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/7/23 9:53 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 3:49:17 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >> On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 9:27:02 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> >>> On 8/2/23 9:34 PM, John Harshman started his first on-topic thread to s.b.p. that I recall
> > ever seeing.
> >
> >>>> Can anyone describe the anatomy of Perucetus colossus, just published in
> >>>> Nature, a middle Eocene whale claimed to be bigger than a blue whale? An
> >>>> artist's conception shows it with a forelimb apparently with free
> >>>> digits, being used to support the body above the sea floor.
> >
> > The artist's conception in the article does not show the digits to be free: the
> > body outline includes them.

> We must be looking at different artist's conceptions. The one I'm
> looking at is not in the Nature article.

Mine is.

> This one:
>
> https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/02/world/ancient-colossal-whale-perucetus-colossus-scn/index.html
> >>> Still can't see the article, but the public bits do include hints that
> >>> the only actual material includes only vertebrae and ribs, and the rest
> >>> of the skeleton is reconstructed based on presumed relatives. The tail
> >>> is even based on extant manatees.
> >
> > There is a tiny notch in the middle in Fig. 2. of the linked article below.

> Note that the tail is entirely conjectural.

I was able to tell that just by looking at Figure 2, which shows what you write next:

> The actual material consists
> of some thoracic vertebrae, a few ribs, and a piece of the pelvis.

> > Strangely enough, a web search for "manatee tail" gave less than 5% photographs
> > showing a complete tail. Yet it is the quickest and easiest way to tell a manatee from a dugong.
> >
> >
> >> So, a bit of press release hype.
> >> It isn't hard to get popular press articles, and it's also easy to the Nature connection:
> >>
> >> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06381-1.epdf?sharing_token=Km5bbE-eJJvo8mP-KmOLB9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pf_L6EYDYzR4YFKG3Aq8XzhCL-3NJFD3RlneHc9W_lt_6PQIXq0jLItmS3TbqH821xHn-LaTCXmsE4MGntzdBQRfFxe298jhlfUtBVbyE-x7uB7aH5VwT-4Y_K-lf-a-NB01Mov-FphQZ7HL6VlnC43Icnq8oDHLFKlxAl3o57ToObsIqf7HdMI9GUvv8oplw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.usatoday.com
> >
> > First, I got a column of tiny reproductions of the pages that I was unable to magnify.
> > However, clicking a seemingly dead view-page button, I got a great webpage showing the article
> > and a note that I have access through the University of South Carolina library system.
> >
> >> The fossil is of some ribs and backbone, and they're extremely big and heavy. No evidence for what the skull or limbs were like, so body mass estimates are just that: estimates. It may likely be as big as a blue whate, or at least comparable. News sources really went to town.
> >
> > The artist's conception on Fig. 2 makes it out to be substantially smaller, in the usual sense,
> > than the blue whale on the same illustration. However, where weight is concerned,
> > the abstract says,
> >
> > "We use the skeletal fraction to estimate the body mass of P. colossus, which proves to be a contender for the title of heaviest animal on record."
> >
> > In fact, the article seems to emphasize a condition that a certain insufferable self-advertiser
> > in s.b.p. and t.o. has advanced for a "waterside hypothesis" for proximal ancestors of *Homo*: pachyostosis.
> >
> > "The adaptations of shallow-diving, slow-swimming species often comprise bone mass increase (BMI). This is produced by the infilling of the inner cavities of skeletal elements with compact bone (that is, osteosclerosis) and, in the more extreme cases, by additional deposition of bone on their external surface5 (that is, pachyostosis sensu stricto). BMI is documented in cetaceans’ amphibious close relatives11, as well as early members of the clade, the basilosaurids in particular.

The amphibious close relatives include *Ambulocetus*, the critter Stephen Jay Gould called
"the smoking gun" of transition from terrestrial forms to archaeocetes ["early members of the clade"]

> > "Extant cetaceans have conversely acquired an entirely different bone microanatomy, with an osteoporotic-like structure typical of pelagic, secondarily aquatic tetrapods with more active swimming. Basilosaurids are therefore unique in the sense that they acquired large sizes (up to around 20 m in body length3) and BMI. The degree of their BMI nevertheless did not match, up until now, that of some sirenians, for example, of which the whole rib cage is both strongly osteosclerotic and pachyostotic [5].
> >
> > "Here we describe a basilosaurid whale that substantially pushes the upper limit of skeletal mass in mammals, as well as in aquatic vertebrates in general. This early whale combines a gigantic size and, to our knowledge, the strongest degree of BMI known to date. It also potentially represents the heaviest animal ever described."

Besides sirenians, the sea otter has been credited with being pachyostotic. I'm not sure about pinnepeds.

> So habit is inferred from bone density to conclude a niche unlike
> anything known in extant whales. Could be.

Confinement to shallow waters seems to be that niche. Do you
read the CNN article otherwise?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 11:27:33 PM UTC-4, Trolidan7 wrote:
> On 8/4/23 09:26, John Harshman wrote:
> > On 8/2/23 9:34 PM, John Harshman wrote:

> >> Can anyone describe the anatomy of Perucetus colossus, just published
> >> in Nature, a middle Eocene whale claimed to be bigger than a blue
> >> whale? An artist's conception shows it with a forelimb apparently with
> >> free digits, being used to support the body above the sea floor.

None of this is claimed in the _Nature_ article, of which the CNN article is a
popularization. Also, a different artist's conception there does not show
the digits to be free, as I told John.

> > Still can't see the article, but the public bits do include hints that
> > the only actual material includes only vertebrae and ribs, and the rest
> > of the skeleton is reconstructed based on presumed relatives. The tail
> > is even based on extant manatees. So, a bit of press release hype.

> I get the idea that this guy might have been so old that
> it might not have echolated a target like the modern grey
> whale before diving.

Also it might have been so old that it did not have as much
blubber as either artist's conception indicates. There is
a bit of divergence here too:

[from the CNN article:]
"Knowing more about Perucetus’ life history could help answer other questions, such as whether the fossil is a testament to the origin of blubber, Thewissen and Waugh wrote.

“That hypothesis is consistent with the fossil’s age of around 39 million years old, from a time when Earth and the oceans were cooling and insulating blubber might have been an advantage,” they added. “It is too early to tell, but such considerations demonstrate that the importance of this fossil goes beyond the documentation of a previously unknown life form.”

Neither Thewissen nor Waugh [1] contributed to the _Nature_ article,
which is more cautious.

[from the Nature article:]
"Estimating body mass in basilosaurids is challenging [27]. For P. colossus, methods based on simple skeletal measurements would also probably be biased by the fact that its skeletal morphology starkly departs from that of other marine mammals. Furthermore, the excess of skeletal mass might have been compensated for by large amounts of blubber (less dense than most other soft tissues in amniotes), which in turn would strongly affect the overall density of soft tissues."

[1] Thewissen and Waugh did their own article on the whale:
NEWS AND VIEWS 02 August 2023 A really big fossil whale
Short abstract:
A newly discovered fossil of an extinct whale from Peru indicates that the animal’s skeleton was unexpectedly enormous. This finding challenges our understanding of body-size evolution.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02408-9

Is this article also paywalled for you?

> Maybe it could just hold its breath for a longer period of
> time?

That would follow logically from what you wrote above, except
that it may not have dived as deep as the gray whale.
What are your thoughts on this?

> what would be cool is if you could find something on the
> formation of sonar among the cetaceans in general. Please
> post if you could find something.

This is largely unknown, just as in bats. Perhaps the best
place to research is to compare the most advanced bat sonar
with the most advanced cetacean sonar.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 8/8/23 3:38 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 1:15:01 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/7/23 9:53 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 3:49:17 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>> On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 9:27:02 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>> On 8/2/23 9:34 PM, John Harshman started his first on-topic thread to s.b.p. that I recall
>>> ever seeing.
>>>
>>>>>> Can anyone describe the anatomy of Perucetus colossus, just published in
>>>>>> Nature, a middle Eocene whale claimed to be bigger than a blue whale? An
>>>>>> artist's conception shows it with a forelimb apparently with free
>>>>>> digits, being used to support the body above the sea floor.
>>>
>>> The artist's conception in the article does not show the digits to be free: the
>>> body outline includes them.
>
>> We must be looking at different artist's conceptions. The one I'm
>> looking at is not in the Nature article.
>
> Mine is.

That's a tiny reconstruction that doesn't show much about whether the
digits are free.

>> This one:
>>
>> https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/02/world/ancient-colossal-whale-perucetus-colossus-scn/index.html
>>>>> Still can't see the article, but the public bits do include hints that
>>>>> the only actual material includes only vertebrae and ribs, and the rest
>>>>> of the skeleton is reconstructed based on presumed relatives. The tail
>>>>> is even based on extant manatees.
>>>
>>> There is a tiny notch in the middle in Fig. 2. of the linked article below.
>
>> Note that the tail is entirely conjectural.
>
> I was able to tell that just by looking at Figure 2, which shows what you write next:
>
>> The actual material consists
>> of some thoracic vertebrae, a few ribs, and a piece of the pelvis.
>
>>> Strangely enough, a web search for "manatee tail" gave less than 5% photographs
>>> showing a complete tail. Yet it is the quickest and easiest way to tell a manatee from a dugong.
>>>
>>>
>>>> So, a bit of press release hype.
>>>> It isn't hard to get popular press articles, and it's also easy to the Nature connection:
>>>>
>>>> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06381-1.epdf?sharing_token=Km5bbE-eJJvo8mP-KmOLB9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pf_L6EYDYzR4YFKG3Aq8XzhCL-3NJFD3RlneHc9W_lt_6PQIXq0jLItmS3TbqH821xHn-LaTCXmsE4MGntzdBQRfFxe298jhlfUtBVbyE-x7uB7aH5VwT-4Y_K-lf-a-NB01Mov-FphQZ7HL6VlnC43Icnq8oDHLFKlxAl3o57ToObsIqf7HdMI9GUvv8oplw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.usatoday.com
>>>
>>> First, I got a column of tiny reproductions of the pages that I was unable to magnify.
>>> However, clicking a seemingly dead view-page button, I got a great webpage showing the article
>>> and a note that I have access through the University of South Carolina library system.
>>>
>>>> The fossil is of some ribs and backbone, and they're extremely big and heavy. No evidence for what the skull or limbs were like, so body mass estimates are just that: estimates. It may likely be as big as a blue whate, or at least comparable. News sources really went to town.
>>>
>>> The artist's conception on Fig. 2 makes it out to be substantially smaller, in the usual sense,
>>> than the blue whale on the same illustration. However, where weight is concerned,
>>> the abstract says,
>>>
>>> "We use the skeletal fraction to estimate the body mass of P. colossus, which proves to be a contender for the title of heaviest animal on record."
>>>
>>> In fact, the article seems to emphasize a condition that a certain insufferable self-advertiser
>>> in s.b.p. and t.o. has advanced for a "waterside hypothesis" for proximal ancestors of *Homo*: pachyostosis.
>>>
>>> "The adaptations of shallow-diving, slow-swimming species often comprise bone mass increase (BMI). This is produced by the infilling of the inner cavities of skeletal elements with compact bone (that is, osteosclerosis) and, in the more extreme cases, by additional deposition of bone on their external surface5 (that is, pachyostosis sensu stricto). BMI is documented in cetaceans’ amphibious close relatives11, as well as early members of the clade, the basilosaurids in particular.
>
> The amphibious close relatives include *Ambulocetus*, the critter Stephen Jay Gould called
> "the smoking gun" of transition from terrestrial forms to archaeocetes ["early members of the clade"]
>
>>> "Extant cetaceans have conversely acquired an entirely different bone microanatomy, with an osteoporotic-like structure typical of pelagic, secondarily aquatic tetrapods with more active swimming. Basilosaurids are therefore unique in the sense that they acquired large sizes (up to around 20 m in body length3) and BMI. The degree of their BMI nevertheless did not match, up until now, that of some sirenians, for example, of which the whole rib cage is both strongly osteosclerotic and pachyostotic [5].
>>>
>>> "Here we describe a basilosaurid whale that substantially pushes the upper limit of skeletal mass in mammals, as well as in aquatic vertebrates in general. This early whale combines a gigantic size and, to our knowledge, the strongest degree of BMI known to date. It also potentially represents the heaviest animal ever described."
>
> Besides sirenians, the sea otter has been credited with being pachyostotic. I'm not sure about pinnepeds.
>
>> So habit is inferred from bone density to conclude a niche unlike
>> anything known in extant whales. Could be.
>
> Confinement to shallow waters seems to be that niche. Do you
> read the CNN article otherwise?

Sure. Why?

On 8/8/23 21:46, John Harshman wrote:
>>
>> Confinement to shallow waters seems to be that niche. Do you
>> read the CNN article otherwise?
>
> Sure. Why?

No damn way a monster that big is confined to shallow waters.

On Friday, August 11, 2023 at 9:55:00 PM UTC-4, Popping Mad wrote:
> On 8/8/23 21:46, John Harshman wrote:
> >>
> >> Confinement to shallow waters seems to be that niche. Do you
> >> read the CNN article otherwise?
> >
> > Sure. Why?

I'm not sure whether John's "Sure" refers to "otherwise." Here's what the
CNN article says about that:

"The authors didn’t have the animal’s skull or teeth, but its known characteristics indicate Perucetus likely fed near the bottom of the sea and wasn’t an active predator, Bianucci said.
....
The study authors have three hypotheses about Perucetus’ diet, Bianucci said: The whale might have been a plant eater like a sea cow, but this herbivorous diet would be the only case among cetaceans. Secondly, the ancient creature could have fed on small mollusks and crustaceans in sandy bottoms like the contemporary gray whale does. And thirdly, maybe Perucetus was a scavenger of vertebrate carcasses."

> No damn way a monster that big is confined to shallow waters.

I meant relatively shallow: I doubt that Perucetus strayed off the continental shelf,
which was wider than it is now, thanks to the lack of permanent icecaps.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On Monday, August 14, 2023 at 10:50:38 AM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, August 11, 2023 at 9:55:00 PM UTC-4, Popping Mad wrote:
> > On 8/8/23 21:46, John Harshman wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Confinement to shallow waters seems to be that niche. Do you
> > >> read the CNN article otherwise?
> > >
> > > Sure. Why?
> I'm not sure whether John's "Sure" refers to "otherwise." Here's what the
> CNN article says about that:
>
> "The authors didn’t have the animal’s skull or teeth, but its known characteristics indicate Perucetus likely fed near the bottom of the sea and wasn’t an active predator, Bianucci said.
> ...
> The study authors have three hypotheses about Perucetus’ diet, Bianucci said: The whale might have been a plant eater like a sea cow, but this herbivorous diet would be the only case among cetaceans. Secondly, the ancient creature could have fed on small mollusks and crustaceans in sandy bottoms like the contemporary gray whale does. And thirdly, maybe Perucetus was a scavenger of vertebrate carcasses."
> > No damn way a monster that big is confined to shallow waters.
> I meant relatively shallow: I doubt that Perucetus strayed off the continental shelf,
> which was wider than it is now, thanks to the lack of permanent icecaps.
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of So. Carolina at Columbia
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
Why not look at the paper in Nature? CNN is hardly the place to be arguing about a very partial fossil.

On Monday, August 14, 2023 at 5:45:02 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Monday, August 14, 2023 at 10:50:38 AM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Friday, August 11, 2023 at 9:55:00 PM UTC-4, Popping Mad wrote:
> > > On 8/8/23 21:46, John Harshman wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> Confinement to shallow waters seems to be that niche. Do you
> > > >> read the CNN article otherwise?
> > > >
> > > > Sure. Why?
> > I'm not sure whether John's "Sure" refers to "otherwise." Here's what the
> > CNN article says about that:
> >
> > "The authors didn’t have the animal’s skull or teeth, but its known characteristics indicate Perucetus likely fed near the bottom of the sea and wasn’t an active predator, Bianucci said.
> > ...
> > The study authors have three hypotheses about Perucetus’ diet, Bianucci said: The whale might have been a plant eater like a sea cow, but this herbivorous diet would be the only case among cetaceans. Secondly, the ancient creature could have fed on small mollusks and crustaceans in sandy bottoms like the contemporary gray whale does. And thirdly, maybe Perucetus was a scavenger of vertebrate carcasses."
> > > No damn way a monster that big is confined to shallow waters.

> > I meant relatively shallow: I doubt that Perucetus strayed off the continental shelf,
> > which was wider than it is now, thanks to the lack of permanent icecaps..

You cluelessly and counterproductively asked:

> Why not look at the paper in Nature?

I did, and I quoted a relevant piece from it in a direct reply to you.

https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/WleZbPa7cR4/m/-2CXV1kdAwAJ
Re: Big Eocene Whale
Aug 7, 2023, 12:53:56 PM

Why are you showing no sign of having read what I quoted? Here is the first one-third of that:

"The adaptations of shallow-diving, slow-swimming species often comprise bone mass increase (BMI). This is produced by the infilling of the inner cavities of skeletal elements with compact bone (that is, osteosclerosis) and, in the more extreme cases, by additional deposition of bone on their external surface5 (that is, pachyostosis sensu stricto). BMI is documented in cetaceans’ amphibious close relatives11, as well as early members of the clade, the basilosaurids in particular. "

Note the bit about "shallow-diving". If you read the whole quote, you will see more clues,
and it even might explain why the artist's conception gives the critter a totally
speculative manatee-like tail.

> CNN is hardly the place to be arguing about a very partial fossil.

The problem with this insincere comment is that CNN is all everyone else has access to,
including Harshman with his unhelpful "Sure. Why?"

Now that you can teleport to what I quoted, do you have the minimal backbone
to argue about it? Feel free to ask for more quotes.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

The new material here is about the smallest basilosaurid known, in tremendous
contrast from the topic up to now.

First, some context about the big one to bring out the contrast:

On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 12:53:56 PM UTC-4, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 3:49:17 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:

> > It isn't hard to get popular press articles, and it's also easy to the Nature connection:
> >
> > https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06381-1.epdf?sharing_token=Km5bbE-eJJvo8mP-KmOLB9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pf_L6EYDYzR4YFKG3Aq8XzhCL-3NJFD3RlneHc9W_lt_6PQIXq0jLItmS3TbqH821xHn-LaTCXmsE4MGntzdBQRfFxe298jhlfUtBVbyE-x7uB7aH5VwT-4Y_K-lf-a-NB01Mov-FphQZ7HL6VlnC43Icnq8oDHLFKlxAl3o57ToObsIqf7HdMI9GUvv8oplw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.usatoday.com

Still paywalled, no? The Nature article on the new one is not-- it's Open Access.
That's to be expected -- smallest, in such an obscure subject as basilosaurids,
is not apt to excite the general public. Here it is:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04986-w
Title: "A diminutive new basilosaurid whale reveals the trajectory of the cetacean life histories during the Eocene"

From the abstract:
"Here we report a new basilosaurid genus and species, Tutcetus rayanensis, from the middle Eocene of Fayum, Egypt. This new whale is not only the smallest known basilosaurid, but it is also one of the oldest records of this family from Africa. Tutcetus allows us to further test hypotheses regarding basilosaurids’ early success in the aquatic ecosystem, which lasted into the latest Eocene, and their ability to outcompete amphibious stem whales and opportunistically adapt to new niches after they completely severed their ties to the land. Tutcetus also significantly expands the size range of the basilosaurids and reveals new details about their life histories, phylogeny, and paleobiogeography."

But more context about the Big One before returning to the little guy:

> > The fossil is of some ribs and backbone, and they're extremely big and heavy. No evidence for what the skull or limbs were like, so body mass estimates are just that: estimates. It may likely be as big as a blue whate, or at least comparable. News sources really went to town.
> The artist's conception on Fig. 2 makes it out to be substantially smaller, in the usual sense,
> than the blue whale on the same illustration. However, where weight is concerned,
> the abstract says,
>
> "We use the skeletal fraction to estimate the body mass of P. colossus, which proves to be a contender for the title of heaviest animal on record."
>
> In fact, the article seems to emphasize a condition that a certain insufferable self-advertiser
> in s.b.p. and t.o. has advanced for a "waterside hypothesis" for proximal ancestors of *Homo*: pachyostosis.
>
> "The adaptations of shallow-diving, slow-swimming species often comprise bone mass increase (BMI). This is produced by the infilling of the inner cavities of skeletal elements with compact bone (that is, osteosclerosis) and, in the more extreme cases, by additional deposition of bone on their external surface5 (that is, pachyostosis sensu stricto). BMI is documented in cetaceans’ amphibious close relatives11, as well as early members of the clade, the basilosaurids in particular. Extant cetaceans have conversely acquired an entirely different bone microanatomy, with an osteoporotic-like structure typical of pelagic, secondarily aquatic tetrapods with more active swimming. Basilosaurids are therefore unique in the sense that they acquired large sizes (up to around 20 m in body length3) and BMI. The degree of their BMI nevertheless did not match, up until now, that of some sirenians, for example, of which the whole rib cage is both strongly osteosclerotic and pachyostotic5.
>
> "Here we describe a basilosaurid whale that substantially pushes the upper limit of skeletal mass in mammals, as well as in aquatic vertebrates in general. This early whale combines a gigantic size and, to our knowledge, the strongest degree of BMI known to date. It also potentially represents the heaviest animal ever described."

"heaviest animal" was the source of the public excitement over it; "heaviest basilosaurid"
would not have cut it.

Now, some more information about the smallest. The Nature article says:

"The new whale is the smallest basilosaurid known to date and is estimated to have been around 2.5 m in length and about 187 kg in body mass."

Fig. 1 has two remarkably clear pictures, which can be enlarged to show exquisite detail. Caption:
"Photograph (a) and corresponding explanatory line drawing (b) of the block containing the holotype specimen of T. rayanensis (MUVP 501)."

Fig. 2 shows even more detail of the molars [and premolars in (c)]:
"Close-up of the posterior lower teeth in the left (b) and right (c) dentaries of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501, holotype).

Unlike in humans, the premolars are far bigger than the molars.

Scrolling way down, you see:
"Fig. 3: Phylogenetic position of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501, holotype)."

It shows 40 genera, divided into two largely terrestrial ones (Pakicetus and Ambulocetus),
five in the transitional Remingtonocetidae, including the first non-Indian, African genus;
16 in the Protocetidae including the well-known Rodhocetus, one genus from South America, and four from North America,
14 from Basilosauridae, which is truly world-wide, with the well-known Zyghoriza found in Europe,
North America, and Australasia. Here is where Tutcetus rayanensis is well nested.
Also 8 from Neoceti.

Patriotic note: one of the protocetids is Carolinacetus, found in Berkeley County, South Carolina.
The silhouette for it in Fig. 3 shows flippers [1] as advanced as in basilosaurids, except for the
hind ones being about twice as large, proportionately. More about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolinacetus

[1] purely conjectural: the list of known bones in the Wiki article does not include any from any of the extremities.

Fig. 3 goes out of its way to obscure the (obvious to me) fact that all the above groups except
the last (and possibly the two-member first) are paraphyletic.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of So. Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 8/22/23 9:54 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> The new material here is about the smallest basilosaurid known, in tremendous
> contrast from the topic up to now.
>
> First, some context about the big one to bring out the contrast:
>
> On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 12:53:56 PM UTC-4, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 3:49:17 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>
>>> It isn't hard to get popular press articles, and it's also easy to the Nature connection:
>>>
>>> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06381-1.epdf?sharing_token=Km5bbE-eJJvo8mP-KmOLB9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pf_L6EYDYzR4YFKG3Aq8XzhCL-3NJFD3RlneHc9W_lt_6PQIXq0jLItmS3TbqH821xHn-LaTCXmsE4MGntzdBQRfFxe298jhlfUtBVbyE-x7uB7aH5VwT-4Y_K-lf-a-NB01Mov-FphQZ7HL6VlnC43Icnq8oDHLFKlxAl3o57ToObsIqf7HdMI9GUvv8oplw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.usatoday.com
>
> Still paywalled, no? The Nature article on the new one is not-- it's Open Access.
> That's to be expected -- smallest, in such an obscure subject as basilosaurids,
> is not apt to excite the general public. Here it is:
>
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04986-w
> Title: "A diminutive new basilosaurid whale reveals the trajectory of the cetacean life histories during the Eocene"
>
> From the abstract:
> "Here we report a new basilosaurid genus and species, Tutcetus rayanensis, from the middle Eocene of Fayum, Egypt. This new whale is not only the smallest known basilosaurid, but it is also one of the oldest records of this family from Africa. Tutcetus allows us to further test hypotheses regarding basilosaurids’ early success in the aquatic ecosystem, which lasted into the latest Eocene, and their ability to outcompete amphibious stem whales and opportunistically adapt to new niches after they completely severed their ties to the land. Tutcetus also significantly expands the size range of the basilosaurids and reveals new details about their life histories, phylogeny, and paleobiogeography."
>
>
> But more context about the Big One before returning to the little guy:
>
>>> The fossil is of some ribs and backbone, and they're extremely big and heavy. No evidence for what the skull or limbs were like, so body mass estimates are just that: estimates. It may likely be as big as a blue whate, or at least comparable. News sources really went to town.
>> The artist's conception on Fig. 2 makes it out to be substantially smaller, in the usual sense,
>> than the blue whale on the same illustration. However, where weight is concerned,
>> the abstract says,
>>
>> "We use the skeletal fraction to estimate the body mass of P. colossus, which proves to be a contender for the title of heaviest animal on record."
>>
>> In fact, the article seems to emphasize a condition that a certain insufferable self-advertiser
>> in s.b.p. and t.o. has advanced for a "waterside hypothesis" for proximal ancestors of *Homo*: pachyostosis.
>>
>> "The adaptations of shallow-diving, slow-swimming species often comprise bone mass increase (BMI). This is produced by the infilling of the inner cavities of skeletal elements with compact bone (that is, osteosclerosis) and, in the more extreme cases, by additional deposition of bone on their external surface5 (that is, pachyostosis sensu stricto). BMI is documented in cetaceans’ amphibious close relatives11, as well as early members of the clade, the basilosaurids in particular. Extant cetaceans have conversely acquired an entirely different bone microanatomy, with an osteoporotic-like structure typical of pelagic, secondarily aquatic tetrapods with more active swimming. Basilosaurids are therefore unique in the sense that they acquired large sizes (up to around 20 m in body length3) and BMI. The degree of their BMI nevertheless did not match, up until now, that of some sirenians, for example, of which the whole rib cage is both strongly osteosclerotic and pachyostotic5.
>>
>> "Here we describe a basilosaurid whale that substantially pushes the upper limit of skeletal mass in mammals, as well as in aquatic vertebrates in general. This early whale combines a gigantic size and, to our knowledge, the strongest degree of BMI known to date. It also potentially represents the heaviest animal ever described."
>
>
> "heaviest animal" was the source of the public excitement over it; "heaviest basilosaurid"
> would not have cut it.
>
> Now, some more information about the smallest. The Nature article says:
>
> "The new whale is the smallest basilosaurid known to date and is estimated to have been around 2.5 m in length and about 187 kg in body mass."
>
> Fig. 1 has two remarkably clear pictures, which can be enlarged to show exquisite detail. Caption:
> "Photograph (a) and corresponding explanatory line drawing (b) of the block containing the holotype specimen of T. rayanensis (MUVP 501)."
>
> Fig. 2 shows even more detail of the molars [and premolars in (c)]:
> "Close-up of the posterior lower teeth in the left (b) and right (c) dentaries of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501, holotype).
>
> Unlike in humans, the premolars are far bigger than the molars.
>
> Scrolling way down, you see:
> "Fig. 3: Phylogenetic position of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501, holotype)."
>
> It shows 40 genera, divided into two largely terrestrial ones (Pakicetus and Ambulocetus),
> five in the transitional Remingtonocetidae, including the first non-Indian, African genus;
> 16 in the Protocetidae including the well-known Rodhocetus, one genus from South America, and four from North America,
> 14 from Basilosauridae, which is truly world-wide, with the well-known Zyghoriza found in Europe,
> North America, and Australasia. Here is where Tutcetus rayanensis is well nested.
> Also 8 from Neoceti.
>
> Patriotic note: one of the protocetids is Carolinacetus, found in Berkeley County, South Carolina.
> The silhouette for it in Fig. 3 shows flippers [1] as advanced as in basilosaurids, except for the
> hind ones being about twice as large, proportionately. More about it here:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolinacetus
>
> [1] purely conjectural: the list of known bones in the Wiki article does not include any from any of the extremities.
>
>
> Fig. 3 goes out of its way to obscure the (obvious to me) fact that all the above groups except
> the last (and possibly the two-member first) are paraphyletic.
Not sure how you think it's trying to obscure that. It's obvious from
the figure. But only Basilosauridae and Protocetidae are shown as
paraphyletic. That too is obvious from the figure.
And it's mentioned in the article, for example "Within the Pelagiceti
clade, the BTD analysis recovered Basilosauridae as paraphyletic, with
Eocetus as the sister taxon of all other sampled members of Pelagiceti.
The lineage that gave rise to Eocetus is estimated to have split off
from all other members of Pelagiceti around 45 Ma, or around the start
of the middle Eocene (i.e., during the middle Lutetian substage). All
other basilosaurids (aside from Eocetus) and neocetes are included in a
moderately-supported (PP = 0.67) clade that arises from the next-most
crownward divergence from the cetacean stem lineage. "

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 1:58:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/22/23 9:54 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > The new material here is about the smallest basilosaurid known, in tremendous
> > contrast from the topic up to now.
> >
> > First, some context about the big one to bring out the contrast:
> >
> > On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 12:53:56 PM UTC-4, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >> On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 3:49:17 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >
> >>> It isn't hard to get popular press articles, and it's also easy to the Nature connection:
> >>>
> >>> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06381-1.epdf?sharing_token=Km5bbE-eJJvo8mP-KmOLB9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pf_L6EYDYzR4YFKG3Aq8XzhCL-3NJFD3RlneHc9W_lt_6PQIXq0jLItmS3TbqH821xHn-LaTCXmsE4MGntzdBQRfFxe298jhlfUtBVbyE-x7uB7aH5VwT-4Y_K-lf-a-NB01Mov-FphQZ7HL6VlnC43Icnq8oDHLFKlxAl3o57ToObsIqf7HdMI9GUvv8oplw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.usatoday.com
> >
> > Still paywalled, no? The Nature article on the new one is not-- it's Open Access.
> > That's to be expected -- smallest, in such an obscure subject as basilosaurids,
> > is not apt to excite the general public. Here it is:
> >
> > https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04986-w
> > Title: "A diminutive new basilosaurid whale reveals the trajectory of the cetacean life histories during the Eocene"
> >
> > From the abstract:
> > "Here we report a new basilosaurid genus and species, Tutcetus rayanensis, from the middle Eocene of Fayum, Egypt. This new whale is not only the smallest known basilosaurid, but it is also one of the oldest records of this family from Africa. Tutcetus allows us to further test hypotheses regarding basilosaurids’ early success in the aquatic ecosystem, which lasted into the latest Eocene, and their ability to outcompete amphibious stem whales and opportunistically adapt to new niches after they completely severed their ties to the land. Tutcetus also significantly expands the size range of the basilosaurids and reveals new details about their life histories, phylogeny, and paleobiogeography."

<snip for focus>

> > The Nature article says:
> >
> > "The new whale is the smallest basilosaurid known to date and is estimated to have been around 2.5 m in length and about 187 kg in body mass."
> >
> > Fig. 1 has two remarkably clear pictures, which can be enlarged to show exquisite detail. Caption:
> > "Photograph (a) and corresponding explanatory line drawing (b) of the block containing the holotype specimen of T. rayanensis (MUVP 501)."
> >
> > Fig. 2 shows even more detail of the molars [and premolars in (c)]:
> > "Close-up of the posterior lower teeth in the left (b) and right (c) dentaries of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501, holotype).
> >
> > Unlike in humans, the premolars are far bigger than the molars.
> >
> > Scrolling way down, you see:
> > "Fig. 3: Phylogenetic position of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501, holotype)."
> >
> > It shows 40 genera, divided into two largely terrestrial ones (Pakicetus and Ambulocetus),
> > five in the transitional Remingtonocetidae, including the first non-Indian, African genus;
> > 16 in the Protocetidae including the well-known Rodhocetus, one genus from South America, and four from North America,
> > 14 from Basilosauridae, which is truly world-wide, with the well-known Zyghoriza found in Europe,
> > North America, and Australasia. Here is where Tutcetus rayanensis is well nested.
> > Also 8 from Neoceti.
> >
> > Patriotic note: one of the protocetids is Carolinacetus, found in Berkeley County, South Carolina.
> > The silhouette for it in Fig. 3 shows flippers [1] as advanced as in basilosaurids, except for the
> > hind ones being about twice as large, proportionately. More about it here:
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolinacetus
> >
> > [1] purely conjectural: the list of known bones in the Wiki article does not include any from any of the extremities.
> >
> >
> > Fig. 3 goes out of its way to obscure the (obvious to me) fact that all the above groups except
> > the last (and possibly the two-member first) are paraphyletic.

> Not sure how you think it's trying to obscure that. It's obvious from
> the figure. But only Basilosauridae and Protocetidae are shown as
> paraphyletic. That too is obvious from the figure.

You are right about that, but you may have jumped from the frying pan
into the fire. Fig. 3 makes Cetacea look polyphyletic!

Look at the node representing the LCA of Pakicetus and Ambulocetus.
The branches to the other cetaceans do NOT emanate from it,
but from the next node further down.

I can't help wondering what the tree would have looked like if *Indohyus* had been included.
It might have turned Cetacea into a clade, but then the following would be needing
a drastic overhaul.

"Indohyus is an extinct genus of digitigrade even-toed ungulates known from Eocene fossils in Asia. This small chevrotain-like animal found in the Himalayas is one of the earliest known non-cetacean ancestors of whales.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indohyus

[1] is here, courtesy of the Wayback machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170504142727/https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/jbsc/034/05/0673-0686

Unsurprisingly, Thewissen is one of the co-authors.

> And it's mentioned in the article, for example "Within the Pelagiceti
> clade, the BTD analysis recovered Basilosauridae as paraphyletic, with
> Eocetus as the sister taxon of all other sampled members of Pelagiceti.
> The lineage that gave rise to Eocetus is estimated to have split off
> from all other members of Pelagiceti around 45 Ma, or around the start
> of the middle Eocene (i.e., during the middle Lutetian substage). All
> other basilosaurids (aside from Eocetus) and neocetes are included in a
> moderately-supported (PP = 0.67) clade that arises from the next-most
> crownward divergence from the cetacean stem lineage. "

The article does not mention *Indohyus*. It roots the tree with the help
of a pig and a hippo.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
University of So. Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 9/4/23 6:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 1:58:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/22/23 9:54 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> The new material here is about the smallest basilosaurid known, in tremendous
>>> contrast from the topic up to now.
>>>
>>> First, some context about the big one to bring out the contrast:
>>>
>>> On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 12:53:56 PM UTC-4, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>> On Friday, August 4, 2023 at 3:49:17 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>
>>>>> It isn't hard to get popular press articles, and it's also easy to the Nature connection:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06381-1.epdf?sharing_token=Km5bbE-eJJvo8mP-KmOLB9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pf_L6EYDYzR4YFKG3Aq8XzhCL-3NJFD3RlneHc9W_lt_6PQIXq0jLItmS3TbqH821xHn-LaTCXmsE4MGntzdBQRfFxe298jhlfUtBVbyE-x7uB7aH5VwT-4Y_K-lf-a-NB01Mov-FphQZ7HL6VlnC43Icnq8oDHLFKlxAl3o57ToObsIqf7HdMI9GUvv8oplw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.usatoday.com
>>>
>>> Still paywalled, no? The Nature article on the new one is not-- it's Open Access.
>>> That's to be expected -- smallest, in such an obscure subject as basilosaurids,
>>> is not apt to excite the general public. Here it is:
>>>
>>> https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04986-w
>>> Title: "A diminutive new basilosaurid whale reveals the trajectory of the cetacean life histories during the Eocene"
>>>
>>> From the abstract:
>>> "Here we report a new basilosaurid genus and species, Tutcetus rayanensis, from the middle Eocene of Fayum, Egypt. This new whale is not only the smallest known basilosaurid, but it is also one of the oldest records of this family from Africa. Tutcetus allows us to further test hypotheses regarding basilosaurids’ early success in the aquatic ecosystem, which lasted into the latest Eocene, and their ability to outcompete amphibious stem whales and opportunistically adapt to new niches after they completely severed their ties to the land. Tutcetus also significantly expands the size range of the basilosaurids and reveals new details about their life histories, phylogeny, and paleobiogeography."
>
>
> <snip for focus>
>
>>> The Nature article says:
>>>
>>> "The new whale is the smallest basilosaurid known to date and is estimated to have been around 2.5 m in length and about 187 kg in body mass."
>>>
>>> Fig. 1 has two remarkably clear pictures, which can be enlarged to show exquisite detail. Caption:
>>> "Photograph (a) and corresponding explanatory line drawing (b) of the block containing the holotype specimen of T. rayanensis (MUVP 501)."
>>>
>>> Fig. 2 shows even more detail of the molars [and premolars in (c)]:
>>> "Close-up of the posterior lower teeth in the left (b) and right (c) dentaries of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501, holotype).
>>>
>>> Unlike in humans, the premolars are far bigger than the molars.
>>>
>>> Scrolling way down, you see:
>>> "Fig. 3: Phylogenetic position of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501, holotype)."
>>>
>>> It shows 40 genera, divided into two largely terrestrial ones (Pakicetus and Ambulocetus),
>>> five in the transitional Remingtonocetidae, including the first non-Indian, African genus;
>>> 16 in the Protocetidae including the well-known Rodhocetus, one genus from South America, and four from North America,
>>> 14 from Basilosauridae, which is truly world-wide, with the well-known Zyghoriza found in Europe,
>>> North America, and Australasia. Here is where Tutcetus rayanensis is well nested.
>>> Also 8 from Neoceti.
>>>
>>> Patriotic note: one of the protocetids is Carolinacetus, found in Berkeley County, South Carolina.
>>> The silhouette for it in Fig. 3 shows flippers [1] as advanced as in basilosaurids, except for the
>>> hind ones being about twice as large, proportionately. More about it here:
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolinacetus
>>>
>>> [1] purely conjectural: the list of known bones in the Wiki article does not include any from any of the extremities.
>>>
>>>
>>> Fig. 3 goes out of its way to obscure the (obvious to me) fact that all the above groups except
>>> the last (and possibly the two-member first) are paraphyletic.
>
>> Not sure how you think it's trying to obscure that. It's obvious from
>> the figure. But only Basilosauridae and Protocetidae are shown as
>> paraphyletic. That too is obvious from the figure.
>
> You are right about that, but you may have jumped from the frying pan
> into the fire. Fig. 3 makes Cetacea look polyphyletic!
>
> Look at the node representing the LCA of Pakicetus and Ambulocetus.
> The branches to the other cetaceans do NOT emanate from it,
> but from the next node further down.

How does that make Cetacea polyphyletic? I'm not getting your point here.

> I can't help wondering what the tree would have looked like if *Indohyus* had been included.
> It might have turned Cetacea into a clade, but then the following would be needing
> a drastic overhaul.
>
> "Indohyus is an extinct genus of digitigrade even-toed ungulates known from Eocene fossils in Asia. This small chevrotain-like animal found in the Himalayas is one of the earliest known non-cetacean ancestors of whales.[1]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indohyus

I'm not sure what you're trying to say there either. First, of courses,
"ancestors" is misused here, as we can't tell whether Indohyus is
ancestral to anything. And "earliest known" is a problem, since the
non-cetacean ancestors of whales go back to the origin of life. What I
think it meant to say is that Indohyus is the known non-cetacean most
closely related to Cetacea, i.e. the closest outgroup. Thus it would
fall on a branch in between hippos and the base of Cetacea.

Still, Cetacea is a clade in Fig. 3, with or without Indohyus.

> [1] is here, courtesy of the Wayback machine:
> https://web.archive.org/web/20170504142727/https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/jbsc/034/05/0673-0686
>
> Unsurprisingly, Thewissen is one of the co-authors.
>
>
>> And it's mentioned in the article, for example "Within the Pelagiceti
>> clade, the BTD analysis recovered Basilosauridae as paraphyletic, with
>> Eocetus as the sister taxon of all other sampled members of Pelagiceti.
>> The lineage that gave rise to Eocetus is estimated to have split off
>> from all other members of Pelagiceti around 45 Ma, or around the start
>> of the middle Eocene (i.e., during the middle Lutetian substage). All
>> other basilosaurids (aside from Eocetus) and neocetes are included in a
>> moderately-supported (PP = 0.67) clade that arises from the next-most
>> crownward divergence from the cetacean stem lineage. "
>
> The article does not mention *Indohyus*. It roots the tree with the help
> of a pig and a hippo.

True enough.

On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 3:43:56 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/4/23 6:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 1:58:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 8/22/23 9:54 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> The new material here is about the smallest basilosaurid known, in tremendous
> >>> contrast from the topic up to now.

<snip for focus>

> >>> https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04986-w
> >>> Title: "A diminutive new basilosaurid whale reveals the trajectory of the cetacean life histories during the Eocene"
> >>>
> >>> From the abstract:
> >>> "Here we report a new basilosaurid genus and species, Tutcetus rayanensis, from the middle Eocene of Fayum, Egypt. This new whale is not only the smallest known basilosaurid, but it is also one of the oldest records of this family from Africa. Tutcetus allows us to further test hypotheses regarding basilosaurids’ early success in the aquatic ecosystem, which lasted into the latest Eocene, and their ability to outcompete amphibious stem whales and opportunistically adapt to new niches after they completely severed their ties to the land. Tutcetus also significantly expands the size range of the basilosaurids and reveals new details about their life histories, phylogeny, and paleobiogeography."
> >
> >
> > <snip for focus>
> >
> >>> The Nature article says:
> >>>
> >>> "The new whale is the smallest basilosaurid known to date and is estimated to have been around 2.5 m in length and about 187 kg in body mass."
> >>>
> >>> Fig. 1 has two remarkably clear pictures, which can be enlarged to show exquisite detail. Caption:
> >>> "Photograph (a) and corresponding explanatory line drawing (b) of the block containing the holotype specimen of T. rayanensis (MUVP 501)."
> >>>
> >>> Fig. 2 shows even more detail of the molars [and premolars in (c)]:
> >>> "Close-up of the posterior lower teeth in the left (b) and right (c) dentaries of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501, holotype).
> >>>
> >>> Unlike in humans, the premolars are far bigger than the molars.
> >>>
> >>> Scrolling way down, you see:
> >>> "Fig. 3: Phylogenetic position of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501, holotype)."
> >>>
> >>> It shows 40 genera, divided into two largely terrestrial ones (Pakicetus and Ambulocetus),
> >>> five in the transitional Remingtonocetidae, including the first non-Indian, African genus;
> >>> 16 in the Protocetidae including the well-known Rodhocetus, one genus from South America, and four from North America,
> >>> 14 from Basilosauridae, which is truly world-wide, with the well-known Zyghoriza found in Europe,
> >>> North America, and Australasia. Here is where Tutcetus rayanensis is well nested.
> >>> Also 8 from Neoceti.
> >>>
> >>> Patriotic note: one of the protocetids is Carolinacetus, found in Berkeley County, South Carolina.
> >>> The silhouette for it in Fig. 3 shows flippers [1] as advanced as in basilosaurids, except for the
> >>> hind ones being about twice as large, proportionately. More about it here:
> >>>
> >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolinacetus
> >>>
> >>> [1] purely conjectural: the list of known bones in the Wiki article does not include any from any of the extremities.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Fig. 3 goes out of its way to obscure the (obvious to me) fact that all the above groups except
> >>> the last (and possibly the two-member first) are paraphyletic.
> >
> >> Not sure how you think it's trying to obscure that. It's obvious from
> >> the figure. But only Basilosauridae and Protocetidae are shown as
> >> paraphyletic. That too is obvious from the figure.
> >
> > You are right about that, but you may have jumped from the frying pan
> > into the fire. Fig. 3 makes Cetacea look polyphyletic!
> >
> > Look at the node representing the LCA of Pakicetus and Ambulocetus.
> > The branches to the other cetaceans do NOT emanate from it,
> > but from the next node further down.

> How does that make Cetacea polyphyletic? I'm not getting your point here.

See below.

> > I can't help wondering what the tree would have looked like if *Indohyus* had been included.
> > It might have turned Cetacea into a clade, but then the following would be needing
> > a drastic overhaul.
> >
> > "Indohyus is an extinct genus of digitigrade even-toed ungulates known from Eocene fossils in Asia. This small chevrotain-like animal found in the Himalayas is one of the earliest known non-cetacean ancestors of whales.[1]
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indohyus

> I'm not sure what you're trying to say there either. First, of courses,
> "ancestors" is misused here, as we can't tell whether Indohyus is
> ancestral to anything.

It is being hypothesized as such, but IIRC reference [1] does not do that.

> And "earliest known" is a problem, since the
> non-cetacean ancestors of whales go back to the origin of life. What I
> think it meant to say is that Indohyus is the known non-cetacean most
> closely related to Cetacea, i.e. the closest outgroup. Thus it would
> fall on a branch in between hippos and the base of Cetacea.
>
> Still, Cetacea is a clade in Fig. 3, with or without Indohyus.

Sorry, you can't make a valid taxon out of something where the data is missing from some
key nodes at the bottom. The LCA of the two strictly data-defined LCA's (that of Pakicetus
and Ambulocetus, and that of all the other genera) could be as non-cetacean
as *Indohyus* for all you know. But that LCA of LCA's is what is needed to make a clade out of Cetacea.

If you want a long-acknowledged example of this kind of problem, look at what is said
in Romer's _Vertebrate Paleontology_ about the phylogeny of the garfish and the bowfin
(in Semionotoidea and Amoidea, respectively).

These are "holostean" fish, but the evolutionary tree in fig. 60
shows how Holostei is polyphyletic. In the 1945 edition, it is on p. 76, and
its caption is: "Development of the groups of bony fishes and amphibians."
The polyphyly is explained on page 94 in the section "Subholosteans" and explicitly mentioned
earlier, p. 87, in the section "Ray-finned fishes," where we read:

"the holostean level of organization was surely attained by more than one group of primitive forms, and the teleosts may be similarly polyphyletic."

> > [1] is here, courtesy of the Wayback machine:
> > https://web.archive.org/web/20170504142727/https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/jbsc/034/05/0673-0686
> >
> > Unsurprisingly, Thewissen is one of the co-authors.
> >
> >
> >> And it's mentioned in the article, for example "Within the Pelagiceti
> >> clade, the BTD analysis recovered Basilosauridae as paraphyletic, with
> >> Eocetus as the sister taxon of all other sampled members of Pelagiceti..
> >> The lineage that gave rise to Eocetus is estimated to have split off
> >> from all other members of Pelagiceti around 45 Ma, or around the start
> >> of the middle Eocene (i.e., during the middle Lutetian substage). All
> >> other basilosaurids (aside from Eocetus) and neocetes are included in a
> >> moderately-supported (PP = 0.67) clade that arises from the next-most
> >> crownward divergence from the cetacean stem lineage. "
> >
> > The article does not mention *Indohyus*. It roots the tree with the help
> > of a pig and a hippo.

> True enough.

By the way, why do you think they used two taxa for the rooting?
I don't recall coming across any trees that used more than one before.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 9/4/23 6:25 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 3:43:56 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
> wrote:
>> On 9/4/23 6:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 1:58:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
>>> wrote:
>>>> On 8/22/23 9:54 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> The new material here is about the smallest basilosaurid
>>>>> known, in
tremendous
>>>>> contrast from the topic up to now.
>
> <snip for focus>
>
>>>>> https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04986-w Title: "A
>>>>> diminutive new basilosaurid whale reveals the trajectory
of the cetacean life histories during the Eocene"
>>>>>
>>>>> From the abstract: "Here we report a new basilosaurid genus
>>>>> and species, Tutcetus
rayanensis, from the middle Eocene of Fayum, Egypt. This new whale is
not only the smallest known basilosaurid, but it is also one of the
oldest records of this family from Africa. Tutcetus allows us to further
test hypotheses regarding basilosaurids’ early success in the aquatic
ecosystem, which lasted into the latest Eocene, and their ability to
outcompete amphibious stem whales and opportunistically adapt to new
niches after they completely severed their ties to the land. Tutcetus
also significantly expands the size range of the basilosaurids and
reveals new details about their life histories, phylogeny, and
paleobiogeography."
>>>
>>>
>>> <snip for focus>
>>>
>>>>> The Nature article says:
>>>>>
>>>>> "The new whale is the smallest basilosaurid known to date and
>>>>> is
estimated to have been around 2.5 m in length and about 187 kg in body
mass."
>>>>>
>>>>> Fig. 1 has two remarkably clear pictures, which can be
>>>>> enlarged to
show exquisite detail. Caption:
>>>>> "Photograph (a) and corresponding explanatory line drawing
>>>>> (b) of
the block containing the holotype specimen of T. rayanensis (MUVP 501)."
>>>>>
>>>>> Fig. 2 shows even more detail of the molars [and premolars in
>>>>> (c)]: "Close-up of the posterior lower teeth in the left (b)
>>>>> and right
(c) dentaries of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501, holotype).
>>>>>
>>>>> Unlike in humans, the premolars are far bigger than the
>>>>> molars.
>>>>>
>>>>> Scrolling way down, you see: "Fig. 3: Phylogenetic position
>>>>> of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501,
holotype)."
>>>>>
>>>>> It shows 40 genera, divided into two largely terrestrial
>>>>> ones
(Pakicetus and Ambulocetus),
>>>>> five in the transitional Remingtonocetidae, including the
>>>>> first
non-Indian, African genus;
>>>>> 16 in the Protocetidae including the well-known Rodhocetus,
>>>>> one
genus from South America, and four from North America,
>>>>> 14 from Basilosauridae, which is truly world-wide, with the
well-known Zyghoriza found in Europe,
>>>>> North America, and Australasia. Here is where Tutcetus
>>>>> rayanensis
is well nested.
>>>>> Also 8 from Neoceti.
>>>>>
>>>>> Patriotic note: one of the protocetids is Carolinacetus,
>>>>> found in
Berkeley County, South Carolina.
>>>>> The silhouette for it in Fig. 3 shows flippers [1] as
>>>>> advanced as
in basilosaurids, except for the
>>>>> hind ones being about twice as large, proportionately. More
>>>>> about
it here:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolinacetus
>>>>>
>>>>> [1] purely conjectural: the list of known bones in the Wiki
article does not include any from any of the extremities.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Fig. 3 goes out of its way to obscure the (obvious to me)
>>>>> fact
that all the above groups except
>>>>> the last (and possibly the two-member first) are
>>>>> paraphyletic.
>>>
>>>> Not sure how you think it's trying to obscure that. It's
>>>> obvious from the figure. But only Basilosauridae and
>>>> Protocetidae are shown as paraphyletic. That too is obvious
>>>> from the figure.
>>>
>>> You are right about that, but you may have jumped from the frying
>>> pan into the fire. Fig. 3 makes Cetacea look polyphyletic!
>>>
>>> Look at the node representing the LCA of Pakicetus and
>>> Ambulocetus. The branches to the other cetaceans do NOT emanate
>>> from it, but from the next node further down.
>
>> How does that make Cetacea polyphyletic? I'm not getting your point
>> here.
>
> See below.
>
>>> I can't help wondering what the tree would have looked like if
*Indohyus* had been included.
>>> It might have turned Cetacea into a clade, but then the
>>> following
would be needing
>>> a drastic overhaul.
>>>
>>> "Indohyus is an extinct genus of digitigrade even-toed ungulates
known from Eocene fossils in Asia. This small chevrotain-like animal
found in the Himalayas is one of the earliest known non-cetacean
ancestors of whales.[1]
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indohyus
>
>> I'm not sure what you're trying to say there either. First, of
>> courses, "ancestors" is misused here, as we can't tell whether
>> Indohyus is ancestral to anything.
>
> It is being hypothesized as such, but IIRC reference [1] does not do
> that.
>
>
>> And "earliest known" is a problem, since the non-cetacean ancestors
>> of whales go back to the origin of life. What I think it meant to
>> say is that Indohyus is the known non-cetacean most closely related
>> to Cetacea, i.e. the closest outgroup. Thus it would fall on a
>> branch in between hippos and the base of Cetacea.
>>
>> Still, Cetacea is a clade in Fig. 3, with or without Indohyus.
>
> Sorry, you can't make a valid taxon out of something where the data
> is
missing from some
> key nodes at the bottom. The LCA of the two strictly data-defined
LCA's (that of Pakicetus
> and Ambulocetus, and that of all the other genera) could be as
non-cetacean
> as *Indohyus* for all you know. But that LCA of LCA's is what is
needed to make a clade out of Cetacea.
I'm not understanding your point here. There's some assumption you're
making that I don't see. I can't tell what you mean by "strictly
data-defined", or how that node differs from any other.

> If you want a long-acknowledged example of this kind of problem,
> look
at what is said
> in Romer's _Vertebrate Paleontology_ about the phylogeny of the
garfish and the bowfin
> (in Semionotoidea and Amoidea, respectively).
>
> These are "holostean" fish, but the evolutionary tree in fig. 60
> shows how Holostei is polyphyletic. In the 1945 edition, it is on p.
76, and
> its caption is: "Development of the groups of bony fishes and
> amphibians." The polyphyly is explained on page 94 in the section
> "Subholosteans"
and explicitly mentioned
> earlier, p. 87, in the section "Ray-finned fishes," where we read:
The tree shows no such thing. It's ambiguous because there's an apparent
polytomy at the base of Holostei. Could be polyphyletic, could be
paraphyletic. At any rate, it's nothing like what the cetacean tree
shows, which is clear monophyly.

Of course that depends on your definition of Cetacea, whether
node-based, branch-based, or character-based, and on what other taxa you
put on the tree, and just where they turn up. But based on the figure,
there's no reason to doubt monophyly and there's nothing different
between the two nodes you mention.

> "the holostean level of organization was surely attained by more
> thanone group of primitive forms, and the teleosts may be similarly
polyphyletic."

Yes, Romer was really into polyphyly. He thought mammals were too. He
was wrong about both. If I recall, holosteans are paraphyletic, not
polyphyletic. But I don't see the relevance here. Still not getting what
you're trying to say.

>>> [1] is here, courtesy of the Wayback machine:
>>>
https://web.archive.org/web/20170504142727/https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/jbsc/034/05/0673-0686
>>>
>>> Unsurprisingly, Thewissen is one of the co-authors.
>>>
>>>
>>>> And it's mentioned in the article, for example "Within the
>>>> Pelagiceti clade, the BTD analysis recovered Basilosauridae as
>>>> paraphyletic, with Eocetus as the sister taxon of all other
>>>> sampled members of Pelagiceti. The lineage that gave rise to
>>>> Eocetus is estimated to have split off from all other members
>>>> of Pelagiceti around 45 Ma, or around the start of the middle
>>>> Eocene (i.e., during the middle Lutetian substage). All other
>>>> basilosaurids (aside from Eocetus) and neocetes are included in
>>>> a moderately-supported (PP = 0.67) clade that arises from the
>>>> next-most crownward divergence from the cetacean stem lineage.
>>>> "
>>>
>>> The article does not mention *Indohyus*. It roots the tree with
>>> the help of a pig and a hippo.
>
>> True enough.
>
> By the way, why do you think they used two taxa for the rooting? I
> don't recall coming across any trees that used more than one before.
Don't know why they used those two taxa, but the hippo is obvious, and I
supposed they wanted another artiodactyl. Trees with multiple outgroups
are not at all rare, though. It's considered good form to break up long
branches whenever possible.

On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 9:49:58 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/4/23 6:25 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 3:43:56 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
> > wrote:
> >> On 9/4/23 6:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 1:58:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
> >>> wrote:
> >>>> On 8/22/23 9:54 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>> The new material here is about the smallest basilosaurid
> >>>>> known, in
> tremendous
> >>>>> contrast from the topic up to now.
> >
> > <snip for focus>
> >
> >>>>> https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04986-w Title: "A
> >>>>> diminutive new basilosaurid whale reveals the trajectory
> of the cetacean life histories during the Eocene"
<snip for focus>
> >>>>> Scrolling way down, you see: "Fig. 3: Phylogenetic position
> >>>>> of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501,
> holotype)."
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It shows 40 genera, divided into two largely terrestrial
> >>>>> ones (Pakicetus and Ambulocetus),
> >>>>> five in the transitional Remingtonocetidae, including the
> >>>>> first non-Indian, African genus;
> >>>>> 16 in the Protocetidae including the well-known Rodhocetus,
> >>>>> one genus from South America, and four from North America,
> >>>>> 14 from Basilosauridae, which is truly world-wide, with the
> >>>>> well-known Zyghoriza found in Europe, North America, and Australasia.
> >>>>> Here is where Tutcetus rayanensis is well nested.
> >>>>> Also 8 from Neoceti.

<snip for focus>

> >>>>only Basilosauridae and Protocetidae are shown as paraphyletic.
> >>>> That too is obvious from the figure.
> >>>
> >>> You are right about that, but you may have jumped from the frying
> >>> pan into the fire. Fig. 3 makes Cetacea look polyphyletic!
> >>>
> >>> Look at the node representing the LCA of Pakicetus and
> >>> Ambulocetus. The branches to the other cetaceans do NOT emanate
> >>> from it, but from the next node further down.
> >
> >> How does that make Cetacea polyphyletic? I'm not getting your point here.
> >
> > See below.
> >
> >>> I can't help wondering what the tree would have looked like if *Indohyus* had been included.
> >>> It might have turned Cetacea into a clade, but then the following would be needing
> >>> a drastic overhaul.
> >>>
> >>> "Indohyus is an extinct genus of digitigrade even-toed ungulates known from Eocene fossils in Asia. This small chevrotain-like animal found in the Himalayas is one of the earliest known non-cetacean ancestors of whales.[1]
> >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indohyus
> >
> >> I'm not sure what you're trying to say there either. First, of
> >> courses, "ancestors" is misused here, as we can't tell whether
> >> Indohyus is ancestral to anything.
> >
> > It is being hypothesized as such, but IIRC reference [1] does not do
> > that.

And, of course, the dominant attitude in "modern" systematics is,

"Sister group hypotheses good, ancestor-descendant hypotheses bad!"

This makes about as much sense as "Four legs good, two legs bad!"
in George Orwell's _Animal_Farm_.

> >> And "earliest known" is a problem, since the non-cetacean ancestors
> >> of whales go back to the origin of life. What I think it meant to
> >> say is that Indohyus is the known non-cetacean most closely related
> >> to Cetacea, i.e. the closest outgroup. Thus it would fall on a
> >> branch in between hippos and the base of Cetacea.
> >>
> >> Still, Cetacea is a clade in Fig. 3, with or without Indohyus.
> >
> > Sorry, you can't make a valid taxon out of something where the data is
> > missing from some key nodes at the bottom. The LCA of the two strictly data-defined
>> LCA's (that of Pakicetus and Ambulocetus, and that of all the other genera)

It's worse than I wrote above, through not defining what I meant by "strictly data-defined LCA".
What I had in mind is "each node has at least one genus directly emanating from it,
with no intermediate nodes [1]". I just wasn't careful enough in applying it.

So, "all the other genera" have an LCA of two strictly defined LCA's, [2] one of Remingtonocetidae
(which has the genus Dalanistes directly emanating from it), the other of Eocetidae, which
has the genus Maiacetus directly emanating from it.

[1] Of course, if the tree had species instead of genera at the branch tips, then "strictly" would apply
to directly emanating species.

[2] I call strictly defined LCA's "first-order LCA's", and a "second-order LCA"
is a non-first-order LCA of two first-order LCA's. Thus "all other genera"
have a second-order LCA.

The LCA of Cetacea is not even a second-order LCA, but it is third-order
because each LCA to which it directly connects is either first-order
[as in the case of {Pakicetus, Ambulocetus}] or second-order.

This third-order LCA could be as non-cetacean as *Indohyus* for all you know.
But that is what is needed to make Cetacea a clade.

> I'm not understanding your point here. There's some assumption you're
> making that I don't see. I can't tell what you mean by "strictly
> data-defined", or how that node differs from any other.

I hope the above explanation is clear enough for you to admit
to being able to follow it.

If the whole concept of "nth order LCA" is foreign to you,
then the reigning systematists are ignoring important distinctions.
The higher the order of an LCA, the less secure the information you have about
the characters of the <cough> "hypothetical" <cough> animal that it represents.
> > If you want a long-acknowledged example of this kind of problem,
> > look at what is said
> > in Romer's _Vertebrate Paleontology_ about the phylogeny of the

> > garfish and the bowfin (in Semionotoidea and Amoidea, respectively).
> >
> > These are "holostean" fish, but the evolutionary tree in fig. 60
> > shows how Holostei is polyphyletic. In the 1945 edition, it is on p. 76,
> > and its caption is: "Development of the groups of bony fishes and
> > amphibians." The polyphyly is explained on page 94 in the section
> > "Subholosteans" and explicitly mentioned
> > earlier, p. 87, in the section "Ray-finned fishes," where we read:

> The tree shows no such thing. It's ambiguous because there's an apparent
> polytomy at the base of Holostei.

You are looking too far up. The polyphyletic nature of Holostei
is shown further down, where Semionotoidea and the paraphyletic
Subholostei emanate from two different places in Palaeonscoidea.
Subholostei in turn gives rise to Amoidea and all the other "holostean"
superfamilies.

VCould be polyphyletic, could be
> paraphyletic. At any rate, it's nothing like what the cetacean tree
> shows, which is clear monophyly.

With a possibly non-cetacean LCA!! see above.

> Of course that depends on your definition of Cetacea, whether
> node-based, branch-based, or character-based, and on what other taxa you
> put on the tree, and just where they turn up. But based on the figure,
> there's no reason to doubt monophyly and there's nothing different
> between the two nodes you mention.

Again, you systematists don't pay enough attention to distinctions,
just as paleontologists of the first half of the 20th century
showed sauropods snorkeling at the ends of their long necks
while ignoring increased pressure at the depth of their lungs,
making breathing impossible.

Too much stamp collecting and not enough mathematics/physics,
as the old saying about "all science" goes. Mathematicians
are used to making distinctions, y'all are wedded to distinctions
born of Hennig.

Concluded in next reply, later today.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 9/5/23 7:56 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 9:49:58 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 9/4/23 6:25 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 3:43:56 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
>>> wrote:
>>>> On 9/4/23 6:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 1:58:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> On 8/22/23 9:54 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>> The new material here is about the smallest basilosaurid
>>>>>>> known, in
>> tremendous
>>>>>>> contrast from the topic up to now.
>>>
>>> <snip for focus>
>>>
>>>>>>> https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04986-w Title: "A
>>>>>>> diminutive new basilosaurid whale reveals the trajectory
>> of the cetacean life histories during the Eocene"
> <snip for focus>
>>>>>>> Scrolling way down, you see: "Fig. 3: Phylogenetic position
>>>>>>> of Tutcetus rayanensis (MUVP 501,
>> holotype)."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It shows 40 genera, divided into two largely terrestrial
>>>>>>> ones (Pakicetus and Ambulocetus),
>>>>>>> five in the transitional Remingtonocetidae, including the
>>>>>>> first non-Indian, African genus;
>>>>>>> 16 in the Protocetidae including the well-known Rodhocetus,
>>>>>>> one genus from South America, and four from North America,
>>>>>>> 14 from Basilosauridae, which is truly world-wide, with the
>>>>>>> well-known Zyghoriza found in Europe, North America, and Australasia.
>>>>>>> Here is where Tutcetus rayanensis is well nested.
>>>>>>> Also 8 from Neoceti.
>
> <snip for focus>
>
>
>>>>>> only Basilosauridae and Protocetidae are shown as paraphyletic.
>>>>>> That too is obvious from the figure.
>>>>>
>>>>> You are right about that, but you may have jumped from the frying
>>>>> pan into the fire. Fig. 3 makes Cetacea look polyphyletic!
>>>>>
>>>>> Look at the node representing the LCA of Pakicetus and
>>>>> Ambulocetus. The branches to the other cetaceans do NOT emanate
>>>>> from it, but from the next node further down.
>>>
>>>> How does that make Cetacea polyphyletic? I'm not getting your point here.
>>>
>>> See below.
>>>
>>>>> I can't help wondering what the tree would have looked like if *Indohyus* had been included.
>>>>> It might have turned Cetacea into a clade, but then the following would be needing
>>>>> a drastic overhaul.
>>>>>
>>>>> "Indohyus is an extinct genus of digitigrade even-toed ungulates known from Eocene fossils in Asia. This small chevrotain-like animal found in the Himalayas is one of the earliest known non-cetacean ancestors of whales.[1]
>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indohyus
>>>
>>>> I'm not sure what you're trying to say there either. First, of
>>>> courses, "ancestors" is misused here, as we can't tell whether
>>>> Indohyus is ancestral to anything.
>>>
>>> It is being hypothesized as such, but IIRC reference [1] does not do
>>> that.
>
> And, of course, the dominant attitude in "modern" systematics is,
>
> "Sister group hypotheses good, ancestor-descendant hypotheses bad!"
>
> This makes about as much sense as "Four legs good, two legs bad!"
> in George Orwell's _Animal_Farm_.

Please stop replying to yourself, and please stop replying to anything
else that's several layers old. It makes the resulting posts harder to
read, and to no purpose.

Also, when you complain about something, you need to include some
argument. We could talk about what makes sense, but you would first have
to clarify your reasons.

>>>> And "earliest known" is a problem, since the non-cetacean ancestors
>>>> of whales go back to the origin of life. What I think it meant to
>>>> say is that Indohyus is the known non-cetacean most closely related
>>>> to Cetacea, i.e. the closest outgroup. Thus it would fall on a
>>>> branch in between hippos and the base of Cetacea.
>>>>
>>>> Still, Cetacea is a clade in Fig. 3, with or without Indohyus.
>>>
>>> Sorry, you can't make a valid taxon out of something where the data is
>>> missing from some key nodes at the bottom. The LCA of the two strictly data-defined
>>> LCA's (that of Pakicetus and Ambulocetus, and that of all the other genera)
>
> It's worse than I wrote above, through not defining what I meant by "strictly data-defined LCA".
> What I had in mind is "each node has at least one genus directly emanating from it,
> with no intermediate nodes [1]". I just wasn't careful enough in applying it.
>
> So, "all the other genera" have an LCA of two strictly defined LCA's, [2] one of Remingtonocetidae
> (which has the genus Dalanistes directly emanating from it), the other of Eocetidae, which
> has the genus Maiacetus directly emanating from it.
>
> [1] Of course, if the tree had species instead of genera at the branch tips, then "strictly" would apply
> to directly emanating species.
>
> [2] I call strictly defined LCA's "first-order LCA's", and a "second-order LCA"
> is a non-first-order LCA of two first-order LCA's. Thus "all other genera"
> have a second-order LCA.
>
> The LCA of Cetacea is not even a second-order LCA, but it is third-order
> because each LCA to which it directly connects is either first-order
> [as in the case of {Pakicetus, Ambulocetus}] or second-order.

You understand that all this ordering is purely an artifact of the
terminal taxa included on the tree, right? I could change the order of
every node ancestral to it by adding a single species to the tree.
According to your idea, adding more taxa would make internal nodes less
"data-defined". More data = worse?

Fortunately, your notiond of "strictly defined" has no real
significance. If you knew how character states at internal nodes were
actually estimated, you wouldn't make these mistakes.

> This third-order LCA could be as non-cetacean as *Indohyus* for all you know.
> But that is what is needed to make Cetacea a clade.

What is what is needed? It seems that by your criteria we could never
know if any group of more than two genera (or perhaps species) was a
clade, since the node would not be "first-order". Not only would we not
know, we could apparently have no idea.

>> I'm not understanding your point here. There's some assumption you're
>> making that I don't see. I can't tell what you mean by "strictly
>> data-defined", or how that node differs from any other.
>
> I hope the above explanation is clear enough for you to admit
> to being able to follow it.

Yes, thanks. But it's just wrong and leads to bizarre contradictions, as
I showed above.

> If the whole concept of "nth order LCA" is foreign to you,
> then the reigning systematists are ignoring important distinctions.
> The higher the order of an LCA, the less secure the information you have about
> the characters of the <cough> "hypothetical" <cough> animal that it represents.

You have given no reason to believe that these distinctions are
important or even at all meaningful. A little thought should show you
that by your reasoning, adding data (in the form of additional species)
to the tree actually makes the LCA "less secure", and that would be a
curious result.

>>> If you want a long-acknowledged example of this kind of problem,
>>> look at what is said
>>> in Romer's _Vertebrate Paleontology_ about the phylogeny of the
>
>>> garfish and the bowfin (in Semionotoidea and Amoidea, respectively).
>>>
>>> These are "holostean" fish, but the evolutionary tree in fig. 60
>>> shows how Holostei is polyphyletic. In the 1945 edition, it is on p. 76,
>>> and its caption is: "Development of the groups of bony fishes and
>>> amphibians." The polyphyly is explained on page 94 in the section
>>> "Subholosteans" and explicitly mentioned
>>> earlier, p. 87, in the section "Ray-finned fishes," where we read:
>
>> The tree shows no such thing. It's ambiguous because there's an apparent
>> polytomy at the base of Holostei.
>
> You are looking too far up. The polyphyletic nature of Holostei
> is shown further down, where Semionotoidea and the paraphyletic
> Subholostei emanate from two different places in Palaeonscoidea.
> Subholostei in turn gives rise to Amoidea and all the other "holostean"
> superfamilies.

Family and university needs have really cut into my free time,
disrupting my posting plans. This is the second and final reply to this post
of 4 days ago.

On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 9:49:58 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/4/23 6:25 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> > look at what is said in Romer's _Vertebrate Paleontology_
> > about the phylogeny of the garfish and the bowfin
> > (in Semionotoidea and Amoidea, respectively).

> > These are "holostean" fish, but the evolutionary tree in fig. 60
> > shows how Holostei is polyphyletic. In the 1945 edition, it is on p. 76, and
> > its caption is: "Development of the groups of bony fishes and
> > amphibians." The polyphyly is [...] explicitly mentioned
> > [on] p. 87, in the section "Ray-finned fishes," where we read:

<snip of later text, dealt with in my first reply>

> > "the holostean level of organization was surely attained by more
> > than one group of primitive forms, and the teleosts may be similarly
>> polyphyletic."
>
> Yes, Romer was really into polyphyly.

He explained that in the very next sentence wrt fishes:

"However, this type of classification, even if not entirely natural, is one which it is best to preserve until our knowledge of the complex evolutionary history of the ray-finned fishes is much more adequate than is the case at present."

> He thought mammals were too.

Why are you so skimpy with the details? Do you believe that
no one besides the two of us is reading this?

You are making this claim because the tree in the chapter "Primitive Mammals"
shows monotremes in a lineage disconnected from all the mammals
known at the time, all subsumed under Theria. These included
all the Mesozoic mammals known from fossils back then:
"the aberrant multituberculates," the paraphyletic pantotheres,
the triconodonts and the symmetrodonts.

And guess what: Carroll, in his 1988 _Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution_,
has a tree on page 415, which shows monotremes in the same "way out" way
as Romer did. Even Morganucodon, now believed to be outside the
mammalian crown group [but WHY?] is closer to those Romer-designated Therians
in the tree than the monotremes are.

> He was wrong about both.

Then so was Carroll. But what makes you so all-fired certain that these
experts were wrong? How certain are you, for instance, that
Theropods are closer to Sauropods than they are to Ornithischians?

> If I recall, holosteans are paraphyletic, not
> polyphyletic. But I don't see the relevance here. Still not getting what
> you're trying to say.

See my first reply to this same post of yours for both sentences.

> >>> [1] is here, courtesy of the Wayback machine:
> >>>
> https://web.archive.org/web/20170504142727/https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/jbsc/034/05/0673-0686
> >>>
> >>> Unsurprisingly, Thewissen is one of the co-authors.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> And it's mentioned in the article, for example "Within the
> >>>> Pelagiceti clade, the BTD analysis recovered Basilosauridae as
> >>>> paraphyletic, with Eocetus as the sister taxon of all other
> >>>> sampled members of Pelagiceti. The lineage that gave rise to
> >>>> Eocetus is estimated to have split off from all other members
> >>>> of Pelagiceti around 45 Ma, or around the start of the middle
> >>>> Eocene (i.e., during the middle Lutetian substage). All other
> >>>> basilosaurids (aside from Eocetus) and neocetes are included in
> >>>> a moderately-supported (PP = 0.67) clade that arises from the
> >>>> next-most crownward divergence from the cetacean stem lineage.
> >>>> "
> >>>
> >>> The article does not mention *Indohyus*. It roots the tree with
> >>> the help of a pig and a hippo.
> >
> >> True enough.
> >
> > By the way, why do you think they used two taxa for the rooting? I
> > don't recall coming across any trees that used more than one before.

> Don't know why they used those two taxa, but the hippo is obvious, and I
> supposed they wanted another artiodactyl. Trees with multiple outgroups
> are not at all rare, though. It's considered good form to break up long
> branches whenever possible.

Does this have anything to do with long branch attractors?

In this case, all it supports is the idea that hippos are the sister group
of cetaceans, and that entails not just one long branch, but the two we see in the tree.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of So. Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos