Eschrichtiidae
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| Eschrichtiidae Temporal range: | |
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Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Infraorder: | Cetacea |
| Parvorder: | Mysticeti |
| Family: | Eschrichtiidae Ellerman & Morrison-Scott 1951 |
| Genera | |
| Synonyms | |
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Eschrichtiidae or the gray whales is a family of baleen whale (Parvorder Mysticeti) with a single extant species, the gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus), as well as four described fossil genera: Archaeschrichtius (Miocene), Glaucabalaena and Eschrichtioides (Pliocene) from Italy,[1][2] and Gricetoides from the Pliocene of North Carolina.[3] Some phylogenetic studies have found this family to be invalid, with its members nesting inside of the clade Balaenopteridae.[4][5] The names of the extant genus and the family honours Danish zoologist Daniel Eschricht.[6]
In his morphological analysis, Bisconti 2008 found that eschrichtiids and Cetotheriidae (Cetotherium, Mixocetus and Metopocetus) form a monophyletic sister group of Balaenopteridae.[7]
A specimen from the Late Pliocene of Northern Italy, named "Cetotherium" gastaldii by Strobel 1875[8] and renamed "Balaenoptera" gastaldii by Portis 1885, was identified as a basal eschrichtiid by Bisconti 2008 who recombined it to Eschrichtioides gastaldii.[9][10]
Steeman et al. 2009 found that the gray whale is phylogenetically distinct from rorquals and that previous morphological studies were correct in the conclusion that the evolution of gulp feeding was a single event in the rorqual lineage.[11] In contrast, multiple later studies found the gray whale to fall within the family Balaenopteridae, being more derived than the minke whales but basal to all other members in the family, and reclassified it in Balaenopteridae; the American Society of Mammalogists has followed this classification.[4][5][12]
