Meet Nehalaennia, a new rorqual whale

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A new genus of rorqual whale has been described from the Miocene of the Netherlands. This new genus has been given the name Nehalaennia devossi ("de Voss's sea goddess"), with the genus name originating from a spelling of the name of the Celtic goddess of the sea and the species name originating from Dr. John de Voss, a Dutch paleontologist who has contributed massively to Dutch paleontology and has been committed to increasing the bond and trust between Dutch professional and amateur paleontologists. The skull of this new genus shares similarities to that of the modern humpback whale, suggesting that Nehalaennia may have been similar to it in life. The paper describing the new genus suggests that it could help in understanding the evolutionary history of the rorqual whales. Here is a reconstruction of the new genus by paleoartist Remie Bakker and an image of the skull used to describe it, as well as a link to the paper describing it.





Paper (open access!): https://peerj.com/articles/6915/