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Description
Coronodon havensteini is a newly described whale from the Oligocene of South Carolina. It's known froma skull with a length of one meter.
This whale is a basal, if not the most basal, mysticete found to this day. That means it's a baleen whale, but as you can see there's no baleen in its mouth. In fact there's a quite badass looking dentition like one would expect to see in more raptorial animals. That's understandable because the wear on the anterior teeth suggests it indeed hunted large prey, but the molars are different, especially the lower molars. They frame slots likely used for filter feeding.
This is important because a previous hypothesis for the origin of filter feeding was that it evolved when teeth were lost for suction-feeding with baleen evolving after this. Coronodon on the other hand shows it evolved from normal hunting behaviour and that baleen did not came before filter feeding, but that it was the other way around.

Description
Coronodon havensteini is a newly described whale from the Oligocene of South Carolina. It's known froma skull with a length of one meter.
This whale is a basal, if not the most basal, mysticete found to this day. That means it's a baleen whale, but as you can see there's no baleen in its mouth. In fact there's a quite badass looking dentition like one would expect to see in more raptorial animals. That's understandable because the wear on the anterior teeth suggests it indeed hunted large prey, but the molars are different, especially the lower molars. They frame slots likely used for filter feeding.
This is important because a previous hypothesis for the origin of filter feeding was that it evolved when teeth were lost for suction-feeding with baleen evolving after this. Coronodon on the other hand shows it evolved from normal hunting behaviour and that baleen did not came before filter feeding, but that it was the other way around.