Boar-snouted dolphin

"An old female of boar-snouted dolphin swims along her calf in the shallow littoral area. Northern Canadian coast, 35 million years in the future."

The boar-snouted or broad-snouted dolphin Brevinopsodelphinus phlaognathus is a extremely specialized species of cetacean found throughout the shallow coastal waters of the Arctic Ocean and northern Atlantic Ocean. It feeds almost exclusively on shelled invertebrates (bivalves, gastropods, crustaceans, etc.). This specialized dietary tendency is reflected on the remarkable mouth - this cetacean has heterodont teeth, with three pairs of big conic teeth at the front, acting as some sort of "nutcracker", and a regular set of "globular" teeth.

The boar-snouted dolphin is related to a once succesful group of raptorial cetaceans which occupied niches similar to those of the modern killer whales and the prehistoric squalodonts. During the Allocene period this group is bounded to several ziphiid-looking gigantic forms.

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