Specimen P 252573 Research Focus, Bayside Fossils - Raptorial Sperm Whale Tooth, Physeteroidea

Summary

This fossilised tooth was discovered by Murray Orr in 2016 at Beaumaris, near Melbourne. It belonged to an extinct species of giant sperm whale that inhabited Australian waters about five million years ago.

Unlike modern squid-eating sperm whales, these raptorial predators may have been specialised hunters of other large marine vertebrates, including sharks and smaller whales. Approximately two thirds of the tooth's length would have been strongly rooted inside the jaw, with just the conical crown exposed above the gumline. At 280 mm long and more than 100 mm wide, it is almost twice the size of modern sperm whale teeth, and is the largest single fossil tooth ever discovered in Australia.