Scientists unveiled a 16 million-year-old fossil skull unearthed in Peru of a river dolphin that once swam in waters that are now the Amazon, and whose closest living relative is the South Asian river dolphin in India's Ganges River.

Paleontologist Rodolfo Salas said the skull belonged to the largest dolphin known to have inhabited the waters of South America, measuring 3 to 3.5 meters long (9.8 to 11.4 feet)

"This dolphin is related to the dolphin of the Ganges river in India," Salas said, adding the one found in Peru is much bigger than its living relatives in Asia.

The ancestors of both dolphins formerly lived in the ocean, Salas said. The study was published in the journal Science Advances

Scientists found the fossil during a 2018 expedition sponsored by the National Geographic Society at the Napo River.

The Amazon and Orinoco river basins still are home to a species known as the Amazon river dolphin, also called the pink river dolphin or boto.