5.3-million-year-old whale necropolis unveils ancient deep-sea cetacean evolution
Scientists mapped a 1,200‑km stretch of the Diamantina Zone in the southeastern Indian Ocean, identifying five active whale falls and 476 fossil cetaceans dating back to at least 5.3 million years ago. The assemblage includes beaked- and baleen-whale remains, with new species such as Pterocetus diamantinae sp. nov., and hosts diverse sulfophilic communities on the carcasses. Strontium‑isotope dating places ages up to ~5.26 Ma, revealing a long-running deep-sea whale‑fall archive and suggesting a potential deep-sea “supercorridor” for chemosynthetic fauna across the region.
