Peru 2011
"Prehistoric animals – Levyatan melvillei"

Issue Date	17.10.2011
ID	Michel: Bl. 74; Scott: 1798; Stanley Gibbons: MS2822; Yvert et Tellier: Category: pF
Design	Christian Alvarez M. - Serpost S.A.
Stamps in set	1
Value	S/. 10,00 - Levyatan melvillei
Emission/Type	commemorative
Issue place	Lima
Size (width x height)	stamp: 40 mm x 30 mm, Souvenir-Sheet: 80 mm x 104 mm
Layout	Block with one stamp
Products	FDC x1
Paper
Perforation	14 x 13.5
Print Technique	Offset, polichromy
Printed by	Thomas Greg and Sons - Peru
Quantity	10.000
Issuing Authority	Servicios Postales del Peru SA

On October 17 ^th, 2011, the Post Authority of Peru - Servicios Postales del Peru SA (Serpost) - continued their multi-year series "Prehistoric animals - Fossils" (Animales Prehistoricos - Fosiles) started in 2004.
This year the Souvenir-Sheet shows scientific reconstruction and fossil of prehistoric sperm whale - Levyatan melvillei.
The reverse side of the Souvenir-Sheet is numbered.

In November 2008, fossil remains of a giant, prehistoric whale were discovered, by international paleontologists team, in the middle of the Peruvian desert 35 km south-west of the city of Ica, from the Pisco Formation at Cerro Colorado, Peru.
Klaas Post, a researcher for the Natural History Museum Rotterdam in the Netherlands, stumbled across them on the final day of a field trip. The remains include a partially preserved 3 meters long skull (75% complete) with teeth and mandible of a "sea monster" three times the size of a modern day killer whale.
The species was described two years later and named Livyatan melvillei, after the original Hebrew word for a mythical sea monster - Livyatan - and Herman Melville (1819–1891), the author of the novel Moby Dick, about a white bull sperm whale.

The teeth of Livyatan melvillei were so large, each around 12 centimetres in diameter and up to 36 centimetres in length, it was initially assumed they were elephant tusks. However, there were no elephants in South America before 3 million years ago, while the specimens found have an estimated age between 9 and 10 million years old.

Professor Jelle Reumer from Natural History (Natuurhistorisch) Museum Rotterdam, the Netherlands, one of the team of scientists who found the fossil explained:

The size of its teeth indicate that the mammal fed on large prey, possibly baleen whales which were plentiful at the time of the Livyatan's existence around 12 million to 13 million years ago, in the middle of the Miocene Age.
After the Miocene it became relatively much colder. At the same time the baleen whales became bigger probably to escape from predation from these animals, just the way elephants escaped predation by becoming bigger so they were not eaten by lions any more.

The researchers speculate that Livyatan was able to feed on very large prey up to 8m long. It would catch the prey in its huge jaws and tear it apart quickly and effectively with its giant teeth.

Livyatan melvillei was a cetacean that measured about 15 meters in length. It was a close relative of modern sperm whales, but unlike those whose diet is based on squid, the Livyatan was possibly the maximum predator of the food chain thanks to its powerful bite and enormous size. Paleontologists think that the evolution of this hypercarnivore was favoured by the great diversity of whales that occurred at that time and that constituted its main food.

Prehistoric shark Carcharocles megalodon on Souvenir-Sheet of New Caledonia 1999, MiNr.: Bl. 22, Scott: 818.

Livyatan differs from current sperm whales in

the enormous size of the temporal fossa

presence of teeth in the jaws

proportionally shorter and more robust skull

method of feeding: modern sperm whale suck in squid at depths of a kilometre or more and only have relatively small teeth on their lower jaw.

This great predator coexisted with another colossus of the time, the giant shark Carcharocles megalodon, whose size is estimated at 13 meters. Teeth up to 15 cm long of Carcharocles are relatively common in the area where fossils of Livyatan were discovered. As a top predator, together with the contemporaneous giant shark Carcharocles megalodon, it probably had a profound impact on the structuring of Miocene marine communities.

The fossil of Livyatan melvillei were prepared in Lima, and now are in collection of the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology of the Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima - Peru, under specimen number MUSM 1676.
Casts of three largest teeth are on display at the Natural History Museum Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Products and associated philatelic items

FDC	First-Day-of-Issue Postmark	Example of circulated cover

References

• Technical details and stamps presentation:
  Serpost Brochure colnect
• Levyatan melvillei:
  Wikipedia.
• Discovery of Levyatan melvillei in Peru:
  • CNN: 'Sea monster' fossil found in Peru desert
  • BBC: 'Sea monster' whale fossil unearthed
  • It's Nature: Leviathan melvillei
  • Lambert, O., Bianucci, G., Post, K. et al. "The giant bite of a new raptorial sperm whale from the Miocene epoch of Peru". Nature 466, 105–108 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09067
• Museum of Natural History, Lima
  official website, Wikipedia

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Dr. Peter Voice from Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Western Michigan University, for reviewing the draft page and his very valuable comments.