Downsizing a heavyweight: factors and methods that revise weight estimates of the giant fossil whale Perucetus colossus
Extremes in organismal size have broad interest in ecology and evolution because organismal size dictates many traits of an organism’s biology. There is particular fascination with identifying upper size extremes in the largest vertebrates, given the challenges and difficulties of measuring extant a...
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crpeerj:10.7717/peerj.16978 2024-06-23T07:51:32+00:00 Downsizing a heavyweight: factors and methods that revise weight estimates of the giant fossil whale Perucetus colossus Motani, Ryosuke Pyenson, Nicholas D. 2024 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.16978 https://peerj.com/articles/16978.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/16978.xml https://peerj.com/articles/16978.html en eng PeerJ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ PeerJ volume 12, page e16978 ISSN 2167-8359 journal-article 2024 crpeerj https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.16978 2024-06-04T06:21:54Z Extremes in organismal size have broad interest in ecology and evolution because organismal size dictates many traits of an organism’s biology. There is particular fascination with identifying upper size extremes in the largest vertebrates, given the challenges and difficulties of measuring extant and extinct candidates for the largest animal of all time, such as whales, terrestrial non-avian dinosaurs, and extinct marine reptiles. The discovery of Perucetus colossus , a giant basilosaurid whale from the Eocene of Peru, challenged many assumptions about organismal extremes based on reconstructions of its body weight that exceeded reported values for blue whales ( Balaenoptera musculus ). Here we present an examination of a series of factors and methodological approaches to assess reconstructing body weight in Perucetus , including: data sources from large extant cetaceans; fitting published body mass estimates to body outlines; testing the assumption of isometry between skeletal and body masses, even with extrapolation; examining the role of pachyostosis in body mass reconstructions; addressing method-dependent error rates; and comparing Perucetus with known physiological and ecological limits for living whales, and Eocene oceanic productivity. We conclude that Perucetus did not exceed the body mass of today’s blue whales. Depending on assumptions and methods, we estimate that Perucetus weighed 60–70 tons assuming a length 17 m. We calculated larger estimates potentially as much as 98–114 tons at 20 m in length, which is far less than the direct records of blue whale weights, or the 270 ton estimates that we calculated for body weights of the largest blue whales measured by length. Article in Journal/Newspaper Balaenoptera musculus Blue whale PeerJ Publishing PeerJ 12 e16978 |
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English |
description |
Extremes in organismal size have broad interest in ecology and evolution because organismal size dictates many traits of an organism’s biology. There is particular fascination with identifying upper size extremes in the largest vertebrates, given the challenges and difficulties of measuring extant and extinct candidates for the largest animal of all time, such as whales, terrestrial non-avian dinosaurs, and extinct marine reptiles. The discovery of Perucetus colossus , a giant basilosaurid whale from the Eocene of Peru, challenged many assumptions about organismal extremes based on reconstructions of its body weight that exceeded reported values for blue whales ( Balaenoptera musculus ). Here we present an examination of a series of factors and methodological approaches to assess reconstructing body weight in Perucetus , including: data sources from large extant cetaceans; fitting published body mass estimates to body outlines; testing the assumption of isometry between skeletal and body masses, even with extrapolation; examining the role of pachyostosis in body mass reconstructions; addressing method-dependent error rates; and comparing Perucetus with known physiological and ecological limits for living whales, and Eocene oceanic productivity. We conclude that Perucetus did not exceed the body mass of today’s blue whales. Depending on assumptions and methods, we estimate that Perucetus weighed 60–70 tons assuming a length 17 m. We calculated larger estimates potentially as much as 98–114 tons at 20 m in length, which is far less than the direct records of blue whale weights, or the 270 ton estimates that we calculated for body weights of the largest blue whales measured by length. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Motani, Ryosuke Pyenson, Nicholas D. |
spellingShingle |
Motani, Ryosuke Pyenson, Nicholas D. Downsizing a heavyweight: factors and methods that revise weight estimates of the giant fossil whale Perucetus colossus |
author_facet |
Motani, Ryosuke Pyenson, Nicholas D. |
author_sort |
Motani, Ryosuke |
title |
Downsizing a heavyweight: factors and methods that revise weight estimates of the giant fossil whale Perucetus colossus |
title_short |
Downsizing a heavyweight: factors and methods that revise weight estimates of the giant fossil whale Perucetus colossus |
title_full |
Downsizing a heavyweight: factors and methods that revise weight estimates of the giant fossil whale Perucetus colossus |
title_fullStr |
Downsizing a heavyweight: factors and methods that revise weight estimates of the giant fossil whale Perucetus colossus |
title_full_unstemmed |
Downsizing a heavyweight: factors and methods that revise weight estimates of the giant fossil whale Perucetus colossus |
title_sort |
downsizing a heavyweight: factors and methods that revise weight estimates of the giant fossil whale perucetus colossus |
publisher |
PeerJ |
publishDate |
2024 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.16978 https://peerj.com/articles/16978.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/16978.xml https://peerj.com/articles/16978.html |
genre |
Balaenoptera musculus Blue whale |
genre_facet |
Balaenoptera musculus Blue whale |
op_source |
PeerJ volume 12, page e16978 ISSN 2167-8359 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.16978 |
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PeerJ |
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12 |
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e16978 |
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1802642649865256960 |