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Ammon News - Scientists have discovered the 16-million-year-old remains of the “largest river dolphin ever found” after unearthing a huge fossilised skull in the Amazon.

Named Pebanista yacuruna, researchers at the University of Zurich found the new species in the Peruvian Amazon region.

They state in a new scientific paper that the Pebanista would have been measured between 3 and 3.5 metres, making it the largest freshwater dolphin to have been found.

An international research team made the find as they travelled on the Napo River in 2018 and started to collect dozens of fossils, however, after almost three weeks of exploration, the team made their most striking discovery.

The large dolphin skull was discovered by Aldo Benites-Palomino, the lead author of the study into the dolphin published in Science Advances, who was an undergraduate at the time.

The Independent