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Baleen whales have two flippers on the front, near the head. Like all mammals, baleen whales breathe air and must surface periodically to do so. Their nostrils, or blowholes, are situated at the top of the cranium. Baleen whales have two blowholes, as opposed to toothed whales which have one.
Whales have two flippers on the front, and a tail fin. These flippers contain four digits. Although whales do not possess fully developed hind limbs, some, such as the sperm whale and bowhead whale, possess discrete rudimentary appendages, which may contain feet and digits.
This made it possible for whales to move around with the vertical tail hitting the water. The front legs transformed into flippers, costing them their mobility on land. [82] One of the oldest members of ancient cetaceans (Archaeoceti) is Pakicetus from the Middle Eocene of Pakistan. This is an animal the size of a wolf, whose skeleton is known ...
Beaked whales have several anatomical adaptations to deep diving: large spleens, livers, and body shape. Most cetaceans have small spleens. However, beaked whales have much larger spleens than delphinids, and may have larger livers, as well. These anatomical traits, which are important for filtering blood, could be adaptations to deep diving.
The holotype of R. kasrani, GSP-UM 3012 found in 1992, was described by Gingerich et al. 1994: a cranium with two dentaries, most of the vertebral column as far as the anterior tail (C2–C7; T1–13; L1–6, S1–4, Ca1–4), most ribs, parts of the sternum, both hip bones, and a left femur.
It’s a creature of the deep so rare that there’s never been a recorded live sighting, and since the 1800s only six samples have ever been documented.
It’s hard to know the total length of the animal as no legs or tail vertebrae were found, but researchers estimate a length of at 10 to 20 ft (3.0 to 6.1 m) considering the head would have been nearly three feet long for a living animal. Georgiacetus was equipped as an active predator capable of taking and processing large prey. There was a ...
The Faroes whales have also been contaminated with cadmium and mercury. [55] However, pilot whales from Newfoundland and Tasmania were found to have had very low levels of DDT. [4] Short-finned pilot whales off the west coast of the US have had high amounts of DDT and PCB in contrast to the low amounts found in whales from Japan and the ...