Dorudon ("spear-tooth") is a genus of extinct basilosaurid ancient whales that lived alongside Basilosaurus 41.03 to 33.9 million years ago in the Eocene.

Dorudon lived in warm seas around the world and fed on small fish and mollusks.

Fossils have been found along the former shorelines of the Tethys Sea in present-day Egypt and Pakistan, as well as in the United States, New Zealand and Western Sahara.

[2] Gibbes 1845 described Dorudon serratus based on a fragmentary maxilla and a few teeth found in South Carolina.

[4] When exploring the type locality, Gibbes discovered a lower jaw and twelve caudal vertebrae, which he felt obliged to assign to Zeuglodon together with his original material.

He did, however, allow Louis Agassiz at Harvard to examine his specimens, and the Swiss professor replied that these were neither teeth of a juvenile nor those of Zeuglodon, but of a separate genus just as Gibbes had first proposed.

[5] Andrews 1906 described Prozeuglodon atrox (="Proto-Basilosaurus") based on a nearly complete skull, a dentary and three associated vertebrae presented to him by the Geological Museum of Cairo.

[7] Since then many specimens have been referred to Prozeuglodon atrox, including virtually every part of the skeleton, and it has become obvious that it is a separate genus, not a juvenile "Proto-Zeuglodon".

[7][8] Kellogg placed several of the species of Zeuglodon described from Egypt in the early 20th century (including Z. osiris, Z. zitteli, Z. elliotsmithii and Z. sensitivius) in the genus Dorudon.

Before Uhen 2004, D. atrox was based solely on Andrews holotype skull, lower jaw, and the vertebrae he referred to it,[11] but is now the best-known archaeocete species.

It has a dominant central protocone flanked by denticles that decrease in size mesially and distally, resulting in a tooth with a triangular profile.