messapicetiformes – Nix Illustration

Flandriacetus gijseni was an early beaked whale that lived during the late Miocene, about 8 million years ago, in nearshore marine waters covering what is now the Netherlands.

Around 4m long (~13′), it had a long snout lined with small sharp teeth – unlike modern beaked whales which are mostly toothless – and much like its close relative Messapicetus it probably led a more dolphin-like lifestyle feeding on small fish near the surface.

It’s currently the youngest known example of a long-snouted stem beaked whale, a holdover from a time when these cetaceans were much more ecologically diverse than they are today.

Globicetus hiberus, a 5m long (16′4″) beaked whale from the Atlantic coast of Portugal and Spain. Its fossils can’t be easily dated since they were fished up from the seafloor, but it was probably around Early-to-Mid Miocene in age (~20-14 mya).

Its skull sported an odd bony sphere at the base of its snout, just in front of the melon, which appears to have been larger and more prominent in males than in females. Many modern beaked whales also have sexually dimorphic crests, ridges, and domes in their skulls, and these structures may function as sort of “internal antlers” – a display structure the whales can “see” via echolocation that signals their size, strength, and health to each other.