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About a year ago while researching early filter feeding whales of the Miocene-Pilocene eras (23-2.5 Million Years ago), I came across an interesting fossil record of the small whale genus Cetotherium from after the Pilocene. Note: By small, I mean small by plankton eating whale standards (4.5 meters (14.7 feet) in length). The record was of fossils of a Cetotherium sp. (of the family Cetotheriidae) from Pleistocene formations in Baku, Azerbaijan dating to the Calabrian, Pleistocene (1.8-0.8 Million Years ago). http://www.fossilworks.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?a=collectionSearch&taxon_no=36692&max_interval=Quaternary&country=Azerbaijan&is_real_user=1&basic=yes&type=view&match_subgenera=1 https://studylib.net/doc/7652725/the-finding-of--a-new-marine-mammal-in-the-ashperon-stage... I currently know of only know of one confirmed member of the family Cetotheriidae that lived during the Pleistocene, Herpetocetus (grew up to 4.5 meters (14.7 feet) in length). Image credit: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zoj.12108 It's also worth mentioning that the discovery of the late Pliocene to at least early Pleistocene Herpetocetus species was accomplished by the forum member @Boesse in 2013. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236077474_Pleistocene_survival_of_an_archaic_dwarf_baleen_whale_Mysticeti_Cetotheriidae I'm wondering if this record of Cetotherium sp. In Pleistocene Azerbaijan is correct, what would it's implications be in the study of Pleistocene Aquatic Mammalian life of Central Asia (especially since the largest body of water around Baku (The Caspian Sea) has been landlocked since the Late Miocene 5.5 Million years ago and any possible whale species to have arrived and lived there until the early Pleistocene would have arrived at least right before 5.5 Million years ago)? How accurate this paper about the Pleistocene Cetotherium of the Caspian Sea is? Also, again if it is, then while the rest of the Cetotheriidae died out by the early Pliocene (3.6 Million Years ago) (the Pygmy Right Whales placement in the family is still debated), what were the external ecological conditions that allowed the supposed Pleistocene Cetotherium sp. and other members of it's family like the Herpetocetus sp. from the Falor Formation of Pleistocene California, US, to survive into the early Pleistocene?