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Dolphins (aquatic mammals) and ichthyosaurs (extinct marine reptiles) share a number of unique adaptations for fully aquatic lifestyle and are frequently used as extreme examples of convergent evolution. Modern cetaceans have internal, rudimentary hind limbs, such as reduced femurs, fibulas, and tibias, and a pelvic girdle.
Marine mammals are aquatic mammals that rely on the ocean for their existence. They include animals such as sea lions, whales, dugongs, sea otters and polar bears. Like other aquatic mammals, they do not represent a biological grouping. [26] The humpback whale is a fully aquatic marine mammal.
Cetaceans are descended from land-dwelling hoofed mammals, and the now extinct archaeocetes represent the several transitional phases from terrestrial to completely aquatic. [1] Historically, cetaceans were thought to have descended from the wolf-like mesonychians , but cladistic analyses confirm their placement with even-toed ungulates in the ...
The name Whippomorpha is a combination of English (wh[ale] + hippo[potamus]) and Greek (μορφή, morphē = form). [2]Some attempts have been made to rename the suborder Cetancodonta, due to the misleading utilization of the suffix -morpha for a crown group, [6] as well as the risk of confusion with the clade Hippomorpha (which consists of equid perissodactyls); [7] however Whippomorpha ...
Marine mammal adaptation to an aquatic lifestyle varies considerably between species. Both cetaceans and sirenians are fully aquatic and therefore are obligate water dwellers. Pinnipeds are semiaquatic; they spend the majority of their time in the water but need to return to land for important activities such as mating, breeding and molting.
Artiodactyla is an order of placental mammals composed of even-toed ungulates – hooved animals which bear weight equally on two of their five toes with the other toes either present, absent, vestigial, or pointing posteriorly – as well as their descendants, the aquatic cetaceans. Members of this order are called artiodactyls.
Ambulocetus may have attacked large mammals which approached the water's edge, and semi-aquatic mammals including early (possibly herbivorous) sirenians (now manatees and the dugong) and the probably amphibious anthracobunids. These two seem to have been rather common on the coasts of the Indian subcontinent, which could mean they were regular ...
Basilosauridae is a family of extinct cetaceans.They lived during the middle to the early late Eocene and are known from all continents, including Antarctica. [1] [2] They were probably the first fully aquatic cetaceans.