‘Oldest mysticete in the Northern Hemisphere’ turns out to be an odontocete.

Sunday, August 2, 2026 12:01

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Tsai, Goedert and Boessenecker 2024 described
a partial whale skull of the genus Fucaia from the Eocene of Washington state, USA. Younger species (eg Late Oligocene Fucaia goedertorum, Figs 1, 2) are more completely known.

Figure 1. Fucaia godertorum (NTUM0VP 240224 in 3 views. DGS colors added here. The skull is about 45 cm in length and missing the anterior premaxilla.

The trouble is
these three authors still believed in the myth = false tradition of a monophyletic clade ‘Cetacea’ which was shown to be diphyletic a decade ago. Taxon exclusion is the reason for this myth.

The large reptile tree (LRT 2340 taxa) minimizes taxon exclusion by testing so many taxa over a wider gamut than in prior studies. This permits interrelated taxa to nest with one another and convergent taxa to be separated.

Figure 2. Fucaia nests between the slightly larger Aetiocetus and the slightly smaller Chonecetus in the LRT.

In the LRT
Fucaia nests between Aetiocetus and Chonecetus (Fig 2) among other basal odontocetes derived from pakicetids and tenrecs. In the LRT mysticetes arose on the other side of the cladogram evolving from hippos and desmostylians.

The LRT is currently in need of testing by independent workers using a similar taxon list.

Here’s what the authors had to say:
“We tested the phylogenetic position of F. humbles = Fucaia by performing cladistic analyses with TNT v1.6 under to disparate and widely used mysicete phylogeny datasets.”

Do you see the assuming and cherry-picking going on in this study?

Don’t tell your cladogram where a taxon should nest. Let your cladogram tell you where a taxon does nest in the midst of all the competing taxa you can muster.

Figure 3. Rorqual evolution from desmostylians, Neoparadoxia, the RBCM specimen of Behemotops, Miocaperea, Eschrichtius and Cetotherium, not to scale.

More from the authors:
“The phylogenetic relationships among early masticates remain highly unresolved, and virtually every reconstruction generates different topologies.”

That’s what happens when you try to force fit an odontocete or two into a mysticete cladogram.

Figure 4. Taxa in the lineage of right whales include Desmostylus, Caperea and Eubalaena. The tiny bit of jugal posterior to the orbit (in cyan) is found in all baleen whales tested so far. The frontals over the eyes are just roofing the eyeballs in Desmostylus, much wider in Caperea and much, much longer in Eubalaena.

More from the authors:
“Mysticetes and … keratinous baleen – have long been hypothesized as probably originating the southern oceans that provieded superabundant and highly–concentrated nutrients.”

Indeed, Miocapera (Fig 3) is from Late Miocene Peru. Caperea (Fig 4) is found in temperate waters of the Southern Hemisphere, that is South of Africa, Australia and South America. Neither of these taxa are mentioned on the text. Given the topic, I find that odd and surprising.

The authors’ cladogram
(their figure 3) includes about 7/8 odontocetes. Mysticetes are relegated to a single ‘true’ baleen whale clade of three taxa.

Given the topic, I find that also odd and surprising.

The solution continues to be: add more taxa. It’s not difficult. It just takes time.

There is no such thing
as a ‘toothed mysticete’ except in the cherry-picked imaginations of whale experts from Academia. If someone knows any of these experts, challenge them to add pertinent taxa to their own cladograms and report back what they recover. Given that the ‘triple origin of whales’ is now eight years on ReserachGate with 1856 reads, I find the lack of curiosity among whale workers similar to the lack of curiosity among pterosaur workers.

What is a scientist with a lack of curiosity? Is there such a category?

References
Tsai C-H, Goedert JL and Boessenecker RW 2024. “The oldest mysticete in the Northern Hemisphere”. Current Biology. 34: 1–7. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2024.03.011

Further reading:
Hernández C, Atzcalli E and Velez-Juarbe, J 2024. “Morphology of the toothed mysticete Fucaia goedertorum and a reassessment of Aetiocetidae (Cetacea, Mysticeti)”. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 44 (3). doi:10.1080/02724634.2024.2436924

wiki/Fucaia

toothed mysticetes

Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2026/08/02/oldest-mysticete-in-the-northern-hemisphere-turns-out-to-be-an-odontocete/