A new fossil from the Late Miocene of Piedmont (north-western Italy) sheds light on the evolution of the Cetotheriidae (Mammalia: Cetacea: Mysticeti)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The baleen-bearing whale Albacetus salvifactus gen. et sp. nov. from the upper Tortonian of Piedmont (north-west Italy) is described herein and compared to an extended sample of mysticete cetaceans. The new taxon belongs to the Cetotheriidae sensu stricto family-rank clade and is closely related to the genera Herentalia, Brandtocetus, Ciuciulea, Adicetus and Tranatocetus from the North Atlantic, Mediterranean and Paratethys basins. The computed tomography (CT) scan of Albacetus salvifactus revealed several previously undescribed characters including the neurovascular characters of the rostrum and the virtual skull endocast. Based on the CT scan, the periotic of A. salvifactus was three-dimensionally reconstructed. The skull endocast revealed that the encephalization quotient (EQ) of A. salvifactus is in the 95% confidence interval of the EQ variation in mysticete cetaceans. Some functional areas of the brain were reconstructed based on specific impressions on the endocast surface, likely corresponding to the sylvian, ectosylvian, suprasylvian and ectolateralis fissures. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that Cetotheriidae sensu stricto is subdivided into two subclades: (1) a North Atlantic group and (2) a widespread group including Herpetocetus, Piscobalaena, Metopocetus and Cetotherium. Phylogenetic results suggest multiple invasions of the Paratethys by different cetotheriid groups. Comparative phylogenetic analyses showed that the monophyly of Caperea and Cetotheriidae sensu stricto, the monophyly of Plicogulae and the monophyly of Tranatocetidae are less parsimonious than the solution proposed herein, thereby reinforcing the monophyly of Balaenoidea, Balaenopteroidea and Thalassotherii.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".