Abstract
Eocene cetaceans from the Indian subcontinent were first reported over 25 years ago by Tandon (1971), who recovered specimens in the District Kachchh (formerly spelled Cutch or Kutch) in the west Indian state of Gujarat. Following this report, Mishra made extensive collections of Tertiary vertebrates, including cetaceans, from Kachchh, and these were published by Sahni and Mishra (1972, 1975). These collections changed a widely held view of cetacean origins that is exemplified by Kellogg’s (1936, p. 270) statement that “the archaeocetes evidently did not reach the Indian ocean during Eocene time.” Around the time of Mishra’s collecting in Kachchh, geologists from the Geological Survey of India (GSI) also reported Eocene cetaceans from Kachchh (Satsangi and Mukhopadhyay, 1975). Subsequently, Kumar and Sahni (1986) described the cranial anatomy of one of the endemic cetaceans from Kachchh, Remingtonocetus, in detail, and erected a new family for it and Andrewsiphius. Since then, collections from the Harudi Formation of Kachchh have been substantially enhanced by the efforts of one of us, and these were reported in his unpublished thesis (Bajpai, 1990).
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Bajpai, S., Thewissen, J.G.M. (1998). Middle Eocene Cetaceans from the Harudi and Subathu Formations of India. In: Thewissen, J.G.M. (eds) The Emergence of Whales. Advances in Vertebrate Paleobiology, vol 1. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0159-0_7
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