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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 ...
Representing the earliest cetacean radiation, they include the initial amphibious stages in cetacean evolution, thus are the ancestors of both modern cetacean suborders, Mysticeti and Odontoceti. [2] This initial diversification occurred in the shallow waters that separated India and Asia 53 to 45 mya , resulting in some 30 species adapted to a ...
The following is a list of currently existing (or, in the jargon of taxonomy) 'extant' species of the infraorder cetacea (for extinct cetacean species, see the list of extinct cetaceans). The list is organized taxonomically into parvorders, superfamilies when applicable, families, subfamilies when applicable, genus, and then species.
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. As a result, the cetacean prefrontal cortex (compared to that in humans) rather than frontal is laterally positioned. [26]
The list of extinct cetaceans features the extinct genera and species of the order Cetacea.The cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) are descendants of land-living mammals, the even-toed ungulates.
The evolution of cetaceans is thought to have begun in the Indian subcontinent from even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla) 50 million years ago (mya) and to have proceeded over a period of at least 15 million years.
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 ...
This puts mesonychians as a distant relative of cetaceans rather than an ancestor, and their somewhat similar morphology was possibly a result of convergent evolution. The oldest known cetacean is the ambulocetid Himalayacetus identified in 1998 and dated to 52.5 million years ago (predating the terrestrial pakicetids), though the exact dating ...