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classified in other odontocete superfamilies (Muizon, 1988b, 1991; Fordyce & Barnes, 1994;
Fordyce et al., 1995; Barnes, 2002b, 2006; Cassens et al., 2000; Nikaido, 2001; McKenna &
Bell, 1997:386-387). Geisler & Sanders (2003), however, supported a more inclusive
Platanistoidea, as it was used by Simpson (1945).
The current concept of the superfamily Platanistoidea (e.g., Muizon, 1987, 1991, 1994;
Heyning, 1989; Fordyce, 1994, 2006; Barnes, 2002b, 2006; Godfrey et al., 2006) differs
greatly from its original concept, with the inclusion of Oligocene to Middle Miocene ―shark-
toothed‖ whales of the family Squalodontidae (see Muizon, 1994; Fordyce, 1994; Dooley,
2005), archaic Late Oligocene dolphin-like members of the family Waipatiidae (Fordyce,
1994), long-snouted Miocene species of the family Allodelphinidae (Barnes, 2006), Miocene
dolphin-like species of the family Squalodelphinidae (see True, 1910; Muizon, 1987;
Fordyce, 1994; Godfrey et al., 2006), and with a more restrictive definition of the extant
family Platanistidae (see Fordyce, 1994; Barnes, 2002a, 2002b, 2006; Godfrey et al., 2006;
Bohaska et al., 2007). Among these various family-level platanistoid clades, only members of
the family Platanistidae survive today, and these are fresh water dolphins of the genus
Platanista
Wagler, 1830, that have relict distributions in the Ganges and Bramaputra River
systems of south Asia.
The purpose of this study is to provide a historic perspective of the evolution of the
Platanistoidea, the group that includes the extant genus
Platanista
Wagler, 1830, to provide
illustrations of skulls (some with their parts labeled) of some of the better-known fossil
members, to provide a new genus name for a long-problematic fossil platanistoid species, to
prepare a phylogenetic analysis of the group, and to provide a classification of the
superfamily Platanistoidea based on that analysis.
M
ATERIALS AND
M
ETHODS
Institutional Abbreviations
CAS Division of Birds and Mammals, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco,
California, U.S.A.
LACM Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles
County, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
USNM Department of Paleobiology, United States National Museum of Natural History,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., U. S. A.
YPM Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut,
U.S.A.
The cranium, CAS 16340, of
Platanista gangetica
(Roxburgh, 1801) that appears in
Figure 11 is part of a skeleton of an adult female individual, collected by T. A. Khan, in
October 1969, at Mian Sahib Jo Got, approximately 48 km north of Lloyd Barrage, Sukkar,
Sind, Pakistan. It has not previously been documented in publication.
Millions of years before present is abbreviated as Ma. Geologic ages and terminology
generally follow Berggren et al. (1995). Terminology for cranial anatomy follows Kellogg
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