ArticlePloS one2019
Stomach contents of the archaeocete Basilosaurus isis: Apex predator in oceans of the late Eocene.
Article in PloS one, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Deep time dietary convergence evidenced by the stomach contents of a fossil seal from the Southwest Atlantic.Royal Society open science · 2026Article
- The extinct marine megafauna of the Phanerozoic.Cambridge prisms. Extinction · 2024Review
- Downsizing a heavyweight: factors and methods that revise weight estimates of the giant fossil whalePeerJ · 2024Article
- Craniodental ecomorphology of the large Jurassic ichthyosaurian Temnodontosaurus.Journal of anatomy · 2024Article
- Cenozoic megatooth sharks occupied extremely high trophic positions.Science advances · 2022Article
- A new protocetid whale offers clues to biogeography and feeding ecology in early cetacean evolution.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Rise and fall of †Pycnodontiformes: Diversity, competition and extinction of a successful fish clade.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Taphonomy of marine vertebrates of the Pisco Formation (Miocene, Peru): Insights into the origin of an outstanding Fossil-Lagerstätte.PloS one · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Apex predators live at the top of an ecological pyramid, preying on animals in the pyramid below and normally immune from predation themselves. Apex predators are often, but not always, the largest animals of their kind. The living killer whale Orcinus orca is an apex predator in modern world oceans. Here we focus on an earlier apex predator, the late Eocene archaeocete Basilosaurus isis from Wadi Al Hitan in Egypt, and show from stomach contents that it fed on smaller whales (juvenile Dorudon atrox) and large fishes (Pycnodus mokattamensis). Our observations, the first direct evidence of diet in Basilosaurus isis, confirm a predator-prey relationship of the two most frequently found fossil whales in Wadi Al-Hitan, B. isis and D. atrox. This extends our understanding of their paleoecology. Late Eocene Basilosaurus isis, late Miocene Livyatan melvillei, and modern Orcinus orca are three marine apex predators known from relatively short intervals of time. Little is known about whales as apex predators through much of the Cenozoic era, and whales as apex predators deserve more attention than they have received.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.