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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 ...
It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site [2] in July 2005 [3] for its hundreds of fossils of some of the earliest forms of whale, the archaeoceti (a now extinct sub-order of whales). The site reveals evidence for the explanation of one of the greatest mysteries of the evolution of whales : the emergence of the whale as an ocean-going ...
World population graph of blue whales. Whaling decreased substantially after 1946 when, in response to the steep decline in whale populations, the International Whaling Commission placed a moratorium which set a catch limit for each country; this excluded aboriginal groups up until 2004.
The timeline of the evolutionary history of life represents the current scientific theory outlining the major events during the development of life on planet Earth. Dates in this article are consensus estimates based on scientific evidence , mainly fossils .
This whale's crusade dwarfed even the longest transits reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which notes in a description of humpback whales shared on its site that some ...
The family Balaenidae, the right whales, contains two genera and four species. All right whales have no ventral grooves; a distinctive head shape with a strongly arched, narrow rostrum, bowed lower jaw; lower lips that enfold the sides and front of the rostrum; and long, narrow, elastic baleen plates (up to nine times longer than wide) with fine baleen fringes.
A map of Earth in the early Eocene (50 Ma) During the Eocene, the continents continued to drift toward their present positions. At the beginning of the period, Australia and Antarctica remained connected, and warm equatorial currents may have mixed with colder Antarctic waters, distributing the heat around the planet and keeping global ...
c. 60 Ma – Evolution of the first primates and miacids. Flightless birds diversify. c. 56 Ma – Gastornis evolves. c. 55 Ma – the island of the Indian subcontinent collides with Asia, thrusting up the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. Many modern bird groups appear. First whale ancestors.