
Aldo Benites-PalominoUniversity of Zurich | UZH · Department of Paleontology
Aldo Benites-Palomino
Master of Science
What do we know, if anything, about the evolution of aquatic mammals in the Neotropics?
About
46
Publications
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Introduction
My research is focused on fossil marine mammals from South American, especially the ones from the late Miocene of Peru. My main interest are pygmy sperm whales (relatives of modern genus Kogia), therefore I focus on systematics, craniofacial anatomy and other secondary adaptations both on fossil and extant species. Lately, the second group of Odontoceti I have been working on are Platanistoidea (relatives of extant south Asia dolphin) from South America. In a few words:
The weirder, the better
Additional affiliations
January 2020 - present
March 2011 - present
Education
January 2022 - February 2025
February 2020 - November 2021
University of Zurich
Field of study
- Biology/Paleontology
March 2011 - December 2018
Publications
Publications (46)
Several dolphin lineages have independently invaded freshwater systems. Among these, the evolution of the South Asian river dolphin Platanista and its relatives (Platanistidae) remains virtually unknown as fossils are scarce. Here, we describe Pebanista yacuruna gen. et sp. nov., a dolphin from the Miocene proto-Amazonia of Peru, recovered in phylo...
Evidence of trophic interactions are not scarce in the fossil record, yet these are mostly represented by fragmentary fossils exhibiting marks of ambiguous significance. Differentiating between marks of active predation and scavenging events is therefore often challenging. Here, we report on a dugongine sea cow skeleton (partial skull and vertebrae...
Megadolodinae is a clade of tropical bunodont litopterns that includes three previously recognized species from Miocene fossil sites from northern South America. Here, we report an additional occurrence of Megadolodus molariformis from the Middle Miocene exposures at the Fitzcarrald arch (Peruvian Amazonia), based on dental material, which represen...
The previously scarce fossil record of Ziphiidae (beaked whales) has greatly increased recently thanks to the serendipitous discovery of high specimen concentrations along deep seafloors as well as to abundant inland finds from the Upper Miocene of the Pisco Formation (East Pisco Basin, Peru). In the latter unit, ziphiid remains are indeed among th...
The La Venta deposits (Colombia) record one of the most fossil-rich regions in tropical South America and offers an exceptional opportunity to study the effect of the Miocene climatic changes and the evolution of extinct and extant clades in a low-latitude ecosystem. Land and freshwater vertebrates, and less commonly plants and invertebrates, const...
This contribution contains the 3D models described and figured in: New remains of Neotropical bunodont litopterns
and the systematics of Megadolodinae (Mammalia: Litopterna). Geodiversitas.
The present 3D Dataset contains the 3D models analyzed in Bianucci et al. 2023, A heavyweight early whale pushes the boundaries of vertebrate morphology, Nature. These include bones of the holotype of new species Perucetus colossus (MUSM 3248), as well as the articulated skeleton of Cynthiacetus peruvianus (holotype, MNHN.F.PRU10). The latter was u...
The fossil record of cetaceans documents how terrestrial animals acquired extreme
adaptations and transitioned to a fully aquatic lifestyle. In whales, this is associated with a substantial increase in maximum body size. Although an elongate body was acquired early in cetacean evolution, the maximum body mass of baleen whales reflects a recent dive...
Fossil cetaceans are often found in Miocene marine outcrops across the globe. However, because this record is not homogeneous, the dissimilar increase in occurrences, along with the sampling bias has created regions with extensive records and others with great scarcity. Among these, the Caribbean has remained enigmatic due to the lack of well-prese...
Records of aquatic mammal fossils (e.g. cetaceans, pinnipeds, sirenians, mustelids, and desmostylians) from Latin America (Mexico to Tierra del Fuego, including Antartica) span since the mid-1800s. Aquatic mammal fossils received little attention from the scientific community, with most of the first studies conducted by Northern Hemisphere research...
Currently, marsupials (modern members of the Metatheria clade) are widely distributed in tropical and subtropical areas of South America, but poorly represented in the fossil record of these regions. Except for the species-rich fossiliferous localities of La Venta in Colombia, additional Miocene metatherians from tropical, equatorial South America...
The present 3D Dataset contains the 3D models analyzed in Benites-Palomino A., Velez-Juarbe J., Altamirano-Sierra A., Collareta A., Carrillo-Briceño J., and Urbina M. 2022. Sperm whales (Physeteroidea) from the Pisco Formation, Peru, and their Trophic role as fat-sources for Late Miocene sharks.
Shark–cetacean trophic interactions, preserved as bite marks in the fossil record, mostly correspond to isolated or fragmentary findings that bear limited information about major trophic patterns or roles. Here, we provide evidence of focalized foraging by sharks in the form of tooth bite marks over physeteroids fossil bones from the late Miocene o...
The fossil record of marine mammals from the upper Pliocene of the western coast of South America is poorly known, hindering our knowledge about how and when marine mammal faunas attained their modern distribution in the area. Here, we describe a new marine mammal assemblage from the Horcón Formation (upper Pliocene), located in the Valparaíso Regi...
The Miocene aquatic and terrestrial fossil record from western Amazonia constitute a clear evidence of the palaeoenvironmental diversity that prevailed in the area, prior to the establishment of the Amazon River drainage. During the Miocene, the region was characterized by a freshwater megawetland basin, influenced by episodic shallow-marine incurs...
Miocene deposits of South America have yielded several species-rich assemblages of caviomorph rodents. They are mostly situated at high and mid- latitudes of the continent, except for the exceptional Honda Group of La Venta, Colombia, the faunal composition of which allowed to describe the late middle Miocene Laventan South American Land Mammal Age...
The fossil record of marine mammals in South America is scattered across Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. Here, I report two occurrences of marine mammals (i.e., pinnipeds and cetaceans) on Neogene layers of Venezuela and Chile. The first report includes material from the Falcon State in Venezuela, consists of an is...
The Paleogene record of caviomorph rodents has substantially increased over the last decades, and their evolutionary history better understood by the discovery of their earliest representatives, so far recorded in several pre-Deseadan localities in Peruvian Amazonia. We report here the discovery of new caviomorph fossils from the Balsayacu area in...
Since 2012, we have investigated a stratigraphic section encompassing the late Eocene–earliest Oligocene interval at Shapaja (Tarapoto area, Peruvian Amazonia, ca. 7°S), through paleontological and geological fieldwork. The measured sedimentary series (120 m-thick [West] plus 90 m-thick [East]), assigned to the upper member of the Pozo Formation, r...
The dense Miocene record of cetaceans is known from localities along the coasts of all continents, mostly in the northern Atlantic or the eastern Pacific regions, but Antarctica. Fossils from the Caribbean region are few and include of a couple of findings from Panama and Venezuela. Here, we report a partly complete skull from the Caujarao Formatio...
Facial compartmentalization in the skull of extant pygmy whales (Kogiidae) is a unique feature among cetaceans that allows for the housing of a wide array of organs responsible for echolocation. Recent fossil findings indicate a remarkable disparity of the facial bone organization in Miocene kogiids, but the significance of such a rearrangement for...
The two extant genera of strictly freshwater dolphins Inia and Platanista are the result of convergent evolution to freshwater environments with reduced visibility. Characterized by their long snout and small melon, these extant taxa are clustered into two clades, Iniidae in South America and Platanistidae in Southern Asia. Their evolutionary histo...
Nowadays, the odontocete family Kogiidae is monotypic and only includes two species of diminutive relatives of the great sperm whale Physeter Linnaeus, 1758. Conversely, a growing body of extinct species indicates that kogiids were diverse and disparate during the late Neogene. The fossil record of Kogiidae is, to date, represented by several crani...
The moderately rich past diversity of the superfamily Inioidea (Cetacea, Odontoceti) in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans contrasts with the present survival of a single genus (Inia, Amazon river dolphin, family Iniidae) in freshwater deposits of South America and of a single species (Pontoporia blainvillei, franciscana, family Pontoporiidae) al...
The Honda Group of La Venta, Colombia, has yielded a wide array of crown platyrrhine primates, documenting the late Middle Miocene epoch (ca. 12-13 Ma, Laventan SALMA). Although exceptional, this record represents only a snapshot of the evolutionary history of New World monkeys since none of the primate taxa recorded at La Venta had so far been fou...
Los cachalotes (Physeteroidea) son un grupo de cetáceos con una ecología restringida en la actualidad. Las tres especies actuales son el remanente de un grupo que alcanzó su máxima diversificacion durante el Mioceno, incluyendo cinco especies simpátricas descritas en la Formación Pisco, Ica-Arequipa, Perú. Entre estas se incluyen formas piscívoras,...
The modern pygmy and dwarf sperm whales (Physeteroidea, Kogiidae) are remnants of a highly diverse group, which flourished in the Miocene oceans. Unlike their modern suction-feeding, deep-diving relatives, the past diversity of this family includes animals with disparate ecological habits. Here, we describe Scaphokogia totajpe, sp. nov., a new spec...
Paleogene deposits of Peruvian Amazonia have yielded the oldest caviomorph rodent communities from South America, and the clues that their early diversification had occurred in this area. Here we report fossil dental remains of rodents from two new sections located in the vicinity of Juanjui and Balsayacu (San Martín Department, Peruvian Amazonia)....
We provide a description of the remains of a fossil whale from western Panama. The record consists of appendicular remains of a mysticete, which has been assigned to Balaenopteridae. These remains, found in the sediments of the late Pliocene Burica Formation, represent the first record of a marine mammal in the Neogene sedimentary succession of the...
We report here a new record of the giant caviomorph Phoberomys corresponding to a fragmentary mandible from the Monte Salvado area, Peruvian Amazonia (Madre de Dios Department). We describe this specimen and compare it with the material previously attributed to Phoberomys. The mandibular fragment is referred to as Phoberomys sp. Found as float on a...
Los cachalotes enanos de la familia Kogiidae son un grupo muy poco conocido de mamíferos marinos. El ejemplar MUSM 973 es un nuevo taxón de kógido proveniente del Mioceno tardío de la Formación Pisco, Montemar, Arequipa. Este animal es reconocido como Kogiidae debido a poseer una cuenca supracraneal reducida, ausencia del contacto entre escamoso y...
La fauna del Mioceno marino del Pacífico Sudeste está ampliamente estudiada a lo largo de los afloramientos la Formación Pisco, en el desierto de la costa centro-sur del Perú. En el nivel fosilífero de vertebrados de Aguada de Lomas (AGL; 8.8-7 Ma.) se ha documentado una gran diversidad de cetáceos fósiles, tanto Mysticeti como Odontoceti. Entre lo...
El presente trabajo representa una contribución al conocimiento paleobotánico evidenciado en el departamento de Ancash y comprendido dentro del Parque Nacional del Huascarán, Cordillera Blanca; los registros de plantas fósiles provienen de la localidad de Recuay (Formación Chimú, cuadrángulo 20i - INGEMMET) al que datan del Cretácico inferior. Este...
Tras 50 millones de años de evolución, en la actualidad los cetáceos se han convertido en un grupo de mamíferos excepcionalmente adaptados a la vida acuática. En el Perú se tienen registradas 32 especies distintas entre odontocetos y misticetos, en ambientes acuáticos, tanto marinos como dulceacuícolas, a los que se suman una gran cantidad de espec...
Resumen La composición de las comunidades marinas actuales es configurada por distintos procesos ecológicos y geológicos a través del tiempo. Así, para entender la biodiversidad actual es importante conocer su historia evolutiva. En el caso de los pinnípedos, la Cuenca Pisco (Ica, Arequipa) nos brinda algunos alcances de su registro fósil. La evolu...
Desde los pioneros estudios de Raimondi (1863), la zona desértica de Ica y Arequipa es conocida por su riqueza paleontológica que incluye fósiles de vertebrados marinos en gran estado de conservación.
Históricamente, los estudios se han focalizado en la fauna neógena de la Fm Pisco (Mioceno medio – Plioceno) en el área de Sacaco (Arequipa; e.g., Mu...
Questions
Questions (2)
I am in the need of scanning some fossils for analyzing their inner structure. Unfortunately I don't have access to a proper CT or micro-CT of industrial use that suits nicely fossils and neither the country in which these specimens are housed. Despite this I can manage to get access to some nice medical CT scans as a plan B.
I was wondering which are the drawbacks or disadvantages of working with these medical CT, as I have never used them in this way before. I understand that resolution or maybe the potency of it might be different, but besides that I don't have any other guess. I'm interested in managing the data of these scans, as it might be the only chance I have to scan these specimens.
Any help would be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance.