Archaebalaenoptera liesselensis

Archaebalaenoptera liesselensis is an extinct rorqual, a baleen whale of the family Balaenopteridae, and the second named species of the genus Archaebalaenoptera. It is known from the late Miocene, in the late Tortonian age, from the Breda Formation near Liessel in the Netherlands. It differs from the type species of its genus, Archaebalaenoptera castriarquati of northern Italy, and from an unnamed species of the genus found in Peru, in being larger. A cladistic analysis of the family recovered the genus as one of the most primitive rorquals, if not the most primitive, and the shape of the jaw in the genus suggests that its members probably could not ram feed the way living rorquals and humpback whales do.