Leviathan

A sea monster has been unearthed! The fossilized remains of a giant whale-beast were found in 12 million year old sediment in Peru. It appears to be related to modern sperm whales: about the same size, but armed with 40 cm (16 inch) teeth on both the upper and lower jaws. From the BBC article:

A 3m-long fossilised skull of the creature was discovered by researchers in southern Peru in 2008. Dr de Muizon's student, Olivier Lambert was among them.


"It was the last day of our field trip when one of our colleagues came and told us that he thought he'd found something very interesting. So we joined him and he showed it to us," he said.


"We immediately saw that it was a very large whale and when we looked closer we saw it was a giant sperm whale with huge teeth."


The teeth were more than twice the length and diameter of those found in modern sperm whales and they were on the upper and lower jaws.

The researchers estimate that the creature probably measured more than 17 meters (56 feet!) long, and may have preyed on other whales. In a tribute to Moby Dick (one of my favorite books), they've named the whale Leviathan melvillei. 

Nature Video has a feature on Leviathan:





The paper is in Nature:

The Giant Bite of a New Raptorial Sperm Whale
Nature, Vol. 466, Issue 7302, 1 July 2010