“…offer a particularly rich cetacean fossil record and an area where available studies allow to explore this key time of cetacean evolution at a stratigraphic resolution finer than the stage. An increase in cetaceans diversity is recorded around 3.2 -3.0 Ma, in coincidence of the mid-Piacenzian climatic optimum, and a drastic decline at the Piacenzian-Gelasian boundary (Dominici et al, 2018;Freschi et al, in press). Starting from this evidence, the present study aims at exploring if measured taxonomic diversity can be taken at face value, or if it is an artifact of the fossil record, by adding data from the literature of Neogene cetaceans of other geographic areas.…”