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Dolphin fossil said to be new species

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Dutch scientists say a North Sea fossil is of a previously unknown species of dolphin with a short, spoon-shaped nose and high, bulbous forehead.

Researchers at the Natural History Museum Rotterdam have named it Platalearostrum hoekmani after Albert Hoekman, a Dutch fisherman who trawled up a bone from the creature's skull in 2008, the BBC reported Monday.

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Museum researchers Klaas Post and Erwin Kompanje say the North Sea has offered up a rich bounty of fossils in recent decades as bottom-trawling has become more common.

The 20-foot dolphin lived 2 million to 3 million years ago, part of the family of marine mammals known as Delphinids, oceangoing dolphins that include both killer and pilot whales.

The fossil bone shows an unusually large tip region containing six teeth known as the premaxilla, suggesting the broad, blunt nature of the creature's snout, researchers say.

They say analyses of similar fossils and modern relatives within the family convince them they have found a new species whose closest living relative is the pilot whale, the BBC reported.

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