Aulophyseter, Kellogg, 1927

Paolucci, Florencia, Fernández, Marta S., Buono, Mónica R. & Cuitiño, José I., 2021, ‘ Aulophyseter’ rionegrensis (Cetacea: Odontoceti: Physeteroidea) from the Miocene of Patagonia (Argentina): a reappraisal, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 192, pp. 1293-1322 : 1317

THE GENUS AULOPHYSETER

The lack of consensus about the species that must be referred to Aulophyseter was partially due to the lack of a formal diagnosis of its type species, Aulophyseter morricei . Gondar (1975) and Kazár (2002) provided the first formal diagnosis of Aulophyseter morricei and Aulophyseter , respectively. However, a careful revision of the referred species to Aulophyseter has not been performed.Based on the new data provided in this study, and some other characters identified by Gondar (1975), Kázar (2002) and Lambert et al. (2016), we propose that the most diagnostic features for Aulophyseter morricei are: rostrum with bottleneck-shape; broad and flattened premaxillae in the rostrum; both premaxillae with about the same width all along the skull, except in the supracranial basin, where the right premaxilla lengthens posteriorly and widens medially to the left side; mesorostral canal partially closed; shallow alveolar groove; lack of the left premaxillary foramen; right premaxilla wider than the maxilla at the level of the antorbital notch; high dorsal exposure of the premaxillae on the rostrum in lateral view; antorbital notch ‘V’-shaped; an anteroposterioly short temporal fossa; anteroposteriorly narrow parietal on the medial wall of the temporal fossa; two dorsal infraorbital foramina on each side; posteriorly protruding occipital condyles; and occipital shield forming an angle lower than 90º with the anteroposterior axis. Based on these characters, we performed a revision of the species referred to Aulophyseter (sensu Kázar, 2002) , but