Makaracetus is an extinct protocetid whale, the remains of which were found in 2004 in Lutetian layers of the Domanda Formation in the Sulaiman Range of Balochistan, Pakistan (, paleocoordinates ).
Makaracetus is an extinct protocetid whale, the remains of which were found in 2004 in Lutetian layers of the Domanda Formation in the Sulaiman Range of Balochistan, Pakistan (, paleocoordinates ).
Makaracetus is unique among archaeocetes in its feeding adaptations; its proboscis and the hypertrophied facial muscles. The generic epithet is a portmanteau of Makara, an elephant-headed sea monster from Hindu mythology, and , Latin for "whale". The species epithet, bidens, is Latin for "two-teeth", in reference to the retention of only two incisors in each premaxilla. Makaracetus' unique features even lead to propose a new classification of Protocetidae based on the degree of their aquatic adaptation; with Makarcetus alone in the subfamily Makaracetinae.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).