Named By: | Bianucci & Landini in 2006 |
Time Period: | Tortonian |
Location: | Italy |
Size: | Approximately 7 meters long |
Diet: | Carnivore |
Fossil(s): | Almost complete skeleton |
Classification: | | Chordata | Mammalia | Cetacea | Physeteroidea | |
Zygophyseter varolai is an extinct cetacean, similar to the sperm whale. The common name of killer sperm whale refers both to its relation to modern day sperm whales, and to its similarity in size to and its "probable similar feeding adaptation to the extant delphinid killer whale (Orcinus orca)".