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While I work on getting my major projects to a stage where I think they're worth sharing, here's some very loose sketches of five Archaeocetes staring straight down the camera, obviously looking most dignified from this angle. Drawn from memory, probably not quite accurate, nonetheless fun.
Mechanical pencil on paper from Reese's cup packaging, 2025
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On the ancient shores of Pakistan, two male Makaracetus fight for dominance. Makaracetus (Makara Whale, named after an elephant-headed sea monster from hindu mythology) was a unique protocetid from the middle Eocene, unique enough to be classified under its own subfamily, Makaracetinae. Like the other protocetids, Makaracetus was a semi-aquatic mammal with a whale-like body, and thick webbed feet better for swimming than for walking. Unlike its relatives however, Makaracetus had a rather strange snout. Originally it was believed it had a small trunk like an elephant or tapir, but further studies revealed it more likely had a sort of bulbous nose like a hippo or a manatee.
Named after the canine-headed Ancient Egyptian god, Phiomicetus anubis is the first fossil cetacean to discovered, described, and named entirely by a team of Arab paleontologists.
Living during the mid-Eocene, about 43 million years ago, in a shallow sea-covered region that is now part of Egypt's Western Desert, Phiomicetus was an early protocetid – an amphibious foot-powered swimmer, at a transitional point in the evolution of whales from deer-like terrestrial animals to fully aquatic screaming torpedoes.
About 3m long (~10'), it had large jaw muscles and sharp teeth with wear patterns that suggest it was a raptorial hunter grabbing and snapping at prey with powerful bites. It would have probably tackled fairly big prey compared to other protocetids, hunting things like large fish, turtles, and even smaller whales in an ecological role similar to that of modern orcas.
Along with the distantly-related long-snouted Rayanistes it's one of the earliest known whales from Africa, giving us further glimpses at a time period when early cetaceans were first dispersing out from the South Asian subcontinent via the ancient Tethys Sea.
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Phiomicetus
Phiomicetus anubis — викопний вид китів із родини Protocetidae, які жили від 43 до 42 мільйонів років тому в середньому еоцені на території нинішнього Єгипту. Рештки тварини були видобуті із Фаюмської западини. Він мав потужні щелепи і великі зуби, які дозволяли б йому полювати і рвати велику здобич.
Повний текст на сайті "Вимерлий світ":
https://extinctworld.in.ua/phiomicetus/
Peregocetus pacificus fue un particular hallazgo paleontológico en el Perú ya que se caracteriza por ser el primer protocétido de este tipo encontrado en sudamérica y uno de los pocos encontrados en América en general. La mayoría de estos animales (como el pakicetus o ambulocetus) han sido encontrados en países orientales como Egipto, Pakistán, etc. Tomando en cuenta que su momento (Eoceno), sudamérica era una "isla" separada de los demás continentes por el océano, Peregocetus nos muestra que estos animales emigraron de un lado del mundo al otro a puro nado. De ahí su nombre, pereger (viajero) y cetus (ballena) en latín. Peregocetus pacificus is a particular paleontological discovery in Perú, being the first "ancient whale" of its kind found in South America, and one of the few found in America in general. Most of this creatures (like Pakicetus and Ambulocetus) has been found in oriental countries like Pakistan and Egypt. Taking into account that back in the Eocene, South America was a continent separated of the rest of the world because of the ocean, Peregocetus suggest that these creatures emigrated from one part of the world to another just swimming. This is why they named it like that, pereger (traveller) and cetus (whale) in latin.
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Newly described fossil whale represents intermediate stage between foot-powered and tail-powered swimming
A newly described fossil whale represents a new species and an important step in the evolution of whale locomotion, according to a University of Michigan paleontologist and his colleagues.
The fossilized remains of Aegicetus gehennae were recovered in the Egyptian desert in 2007 and were dated to around 35 million years ago. The creature appears to have been well-adapted for swimming through undulation of the mid-body and tail, somewhat as crocodiles swim today, according to U-M's Philip Gingerich.
The discovery is detailed in a paper scheduled for publication Dec. 11 in the journal PLOS ONE.
The fossil record of whale evolution tracks the transition from land-dwelling ancestors to ocean-dwelling cetaceans. Protocetids are a group of early, semi-aquatic whales known from the middle of the Eocene, a geological epoch that began 56 million years ago and ended 33.9 million years ago. Protocetid remains have been found in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
While modern whales are fully aquatic and use their tails to propel themselves through the water, most protocetids are thought to have been semi-aquatic and swam mainly with their limbs.
In their PLOS ONE paper, Gingerich and his colleagues describe a new genus and species, Aegicetus gehennae, the first late-Eocene protocetid. Its body shape is similar to that of other ancient whales of its time, such as the famous Basilosaurus.
The researchers suggest that an undulatory swimming style might represent a transitional stage between the foot-powered swimming of early whales and the tail-powered swimming of modern whales.
"Early protocetid whales living 47 to 41 million years ago were foot-powered swimmers. Later, starting about 37 million years ago, whales became tail-powered swimmers," said Gingerich, a professor emeritus in the U-M Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and curator emeritus at the U-M Museum of Paleontology.
"This newly discovered fossil whale, Aegicetus, was intermediate in time and form and was transitional functionally in having the larger and more powerful vertebral column of a tail-powered swimmer," said Gingerich, who is also a professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology and of anthropology.
The fossilized bones were discovered in the Wadi Al Hitan World Heritage Site in the Western Desert of Egypt. Aegicetus is the youngest-known protocetid and is known from one exceptionally complete skeleton—roughly two-thirds of the individual's bones were recovered—and a partial second specimen, making it among the best-preserved ancient whales.
*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.
This spry Georgiacetus leaps out of the water trying to make a quick snack of this unspecific seabird.
Georgiacetus (Georgia Whale) was a protocetid whale that lived around 46 million years ago in what is now the southeastern United States. During this time period, the sea levels were much higher, leading most of the southeastern United States to be underwater. Georgiacetus was another member of the protocetid family alongside Maiacetus and Makaracetus, and a member of the subfamily Georgiacetinae. It is thought that Georgiacetus may have been an important transitional link between the other protocetids and modern whales.
