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The traditional hypothesis of cetacean evolution, first proposed by Van Valen in 1966, [9] was that whales were related to the mesonychians, an extinct order of carnivorous ungulates (hoofed animals) that resembled wolves with hooves and were a sister group of the artiodactyls (even-toed ungulates). This hypothesis was proposed due to ...
The pygmy right whale shares several characteristics with the right whales, with the exception of having a dorsal fin. Also, pygmy right whales' heads are no more than one quarter the size of their bodies, whereas the right whales' heads are about one-third the size of their bodies. [11] The pygmy right whale is the only extant member of its ...
Whales are fully aquatic, open-ocean animals: they can feed, mate, give birth, suckle and raise their young at sea. Whales range in size from the 2.6 metres (8.5 ft) and 135 kilograms (298 lb) dwarf sperm whale to the 29.9 metres (98 ft) and 190 tonnes (210 short tons) blue whale, which is the
Thus, more recent evolution of these complex blubber traits occurred after baleen whales and toothed whales split, and only in the toothed whale lineage. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ] Modern toothed whales do not rely on their sense of sight, but rather on their sonar to hunt prey.
In some whales, however, it is less than half that of humans: 0.9% versus 2.1%. [citation needed] In cetaceans, evolution in the water has caused changes to the head that have modified brain shape such that the brain folds around the insula and expands more laterally than in terrestrial mammals.
To understand the hunting and foraging behavior of beaked whales, researchers used sound and orientation recording devices on two species: Cuvier's beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) and Blainville's beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris). These whales hunt by echolocation in deep water (where the majority of their prey is located) between ...
Scientists said on Wednesday they had discovered the 43 million-year-old fossil of a previously unknown amphibious four-legged whale species in Egypt that helps trace the transition of ...
Baleen whales can have streamlined or large bodies, depending on the feeding behavior, and two limbs that are modified into flippers. The fin whale is the fastest baleen whale, recorded swimming at 10 m/s (36 km/h; 22 mph). Baleen whales use their baleen plates to filter out food from the water by either lunge-feeding or skim-feeding