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Unlike all later cetaceans, it had four fully functional long legs. Pakicetus had a long snout; a typical complement of teeth that included incisors, canines, premolars, and molars; a distinct and flexible neck; and a very long and robust tail. As in most land mammals, the nose was at the tip of the snout. [5]
One of the diagnostic characteristics of artiodactyls is the double-pulley astragalus (heel bone), and palaeontologists, unconvinced by the data from the labs, set themselves out to find archaeocete single-pulley heel bones. Hind legs from three archaeocete species were recovered within a few years, among them those of Rodhocetus ...
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.
Female beaked whales' teeth are hidden in the gums and are not visible, and most male beaked whales have only two short tusks. Narwhals have vestigial teeth other than their tusk, which is present on males and 15% of females and has millions of nerves to sense water temperature, pressure and salinity.
Whales and their relatives have a soft tissue flipper that encases most of the forelimb, and elongated digits with an increased number of phalanges. [9] Hyperphalangy is an increase in the number of phalanges beyond the plesiomorphic mammal condition of three phalanges-per-digit. [ 10 ]
Such is the case in whales, which have small vestigial bones that appear to be remnants of the leg bones of their ancestors which walked on land. [53] Humans also have vestigial structures, including the ear muscles, the wisdom teeth, the appendix, the tail bone, body hair (including goose bumps), and the semilunar fold in the corner of the eye ...
Scientists think they might have finally learned the secret to how whales sing their complicated songs. We knew whales made a vast array of vocalizations, called songs, that can carry for ...
The dorsal end of the ribs are remarkably thin and almost fail to make contact with the transverse processes. The reduced tail (or sacrocaudal region) features a vestigial pelvis and small chevron bones. [18] The flippers have four digits. The lungs and heart are relatively small, which suggests that the pygmy right whale is not a deep diver.