*Another* Archaeocete bust update that I posted to Twitter but forgot about sharing here, this time its my Georgiacetus render, redone this year to improve on the version I did in 2020.
This one also got some additional mass packed on the bones and some new colors applied to it, compared to the original, and I hope someday to make a physical, life-size version of this piece, however long it takes to get to that point.
Like B. cetoides, this ancient whale was also first found in the Southeastern U.S., but in Georgia instead, and its postcranial skeleton is rather disarticulated and incomplete. The earliest fossils of Georgiacetus vogtlensis are about 5 million years older than the first Basilosaurs, with a much more basal body plan: a larger and better developed pelvis, suggesting prominent legs (which would have been the main source of propulsion since it lacked flukes), a shorter torso and tail, and an altogether smaller body size (estimated to between 10 and 20 feet long). With the scarcity of postcranial material for this genus (such as limbs, certain vertebra, all but the tip of the tail, most of the ribs), our estimation of the animal is informed by fossil material from other, better represented Protocetids. Like the later appearing Basilosaurids, however, Georgiacetus's pelvis was not fused to its vertebrae, and their skulls are visually pretty similar.
This mesh was rendered in Sculptfab and SculptGL, with these screenshots being taken in the latter program.
