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Paleontologists Discover Weird ‘Pokémon’ Ancestor of Modern Whales

Today’s whales are massive and mighty. Twenty-five million years ago, they were puny and freakish.

Researchers have named a bizarre, prehistoric species of whale discovered on a beach in Australia. Janjucetus dullardi “might have looked for all the world like some weird kind of mash-up between a whale, a seal, and a Pokémon,” according to Erich Fitzgerald, a senior paleontologist at Museums Victoria Research Institute who co-authored the paper on the discovery. Measuring less than ten feet and roaming the oceans around 25 million years ago, the underwater beasts would have boasted bulbous eyes the size of tennis balls, razor-sharp teeth, and a pointed snout. Fitzgerald adds they may also even have had “tiny little nubbins of legs just projecting as stumps from the wall of the body.” The first specimen, comprising a partial skull with ear bones and teeth, was found in 2019 by amateur fossil hunter Ross Dullard, a school principal after whom the species has now been named. Dullard says he plans to host a fossil party to celebrate the naming over the weekend. “That’s taken my concentration for six years,” he said. “I’ve had sleepless nights. I’ve dreamt about this whale.”