ArticleJournal of anatomy2020
Reduction of olfactory and respiratory turbinates in the transition of whales from land to sea: the semiaquatic middle Eocene Aegyptocetus tarfa.
Article in Journal of anatomy, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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3 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Disparity of turbinal bones in placental mammals.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2026Article
- The olfactory bulb endocast as a proxy for mammalian olfaction.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Convergent evolution of olfactory and thermoregulatory capacities in small amphibious mammals.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Ethmoturbinates, nasoturbinates, and maxilloturbinates are well developed in the narial tract of land-dwelling artiodactyls ancestral to whales, but these are greatly reduced or lost entirely in modern whales. Aegyptocetus tarfa is a semiaquatic protocetid from the middle Eocene of Egypt. Computed axial tomography scans of the skull show that A. tarfa retained all three sets of turbinates like a land mammal. It is intermediate between terrestrial artiodactyls and aquatic whales in reduction of the turbinates. Ethmoturbinates in A. tarfa have 26% of the surface area expected for an artiodactyl. These have an olfactory function and indicate that early whales retained a sense of smell in the transition from land to sea. Maxilloturbinates in A. tarfa have 6% of the surface area expected for an artiodactyl. These have a respiratory function and their markedly reduced size suggests that rapid inhalation and exhalation was already more important than warming and humidifying air, in contrast to extant land mammals. Finally, the maxilloturbinates of A. tarfa, although greatly reduced, still show some degree of similarity to those of artiodactyls, supporting the phylogenetic affinity of cetaceans and artiodactyls based on morphological and molecular evidence.
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