evolutie – Zeezoogdieren.org

Dolphins and whales separately evolved the same speedy swimming bones

7 januari 2021 door frank

A 24-million-year-old fossil of a giant tusked dolphin lacks several features common to modern dolphins and baleen whales. The discovery shows that the common ancestor of dolphins and whales lacked these features, meaning the same adaptations for swimming must have evolved independently in both lineages. >> read more … image credits: By PaleoGeekSquared – Own … Meer lezen

New fossil seal species rewrites history

12 november 2020 door frank

The discovery, published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, radically changes scientists’ understanding of how seal species evolved around the world. >> read more …

The A-Z of Extinct Whales

6 november 2020 door frank

In this episode, we’ll be travelling back more than 53 million years to go through the ABC’s of Extinct Whales. From Acrophyseter to Zygophyseter, it’s going to be one HELL of a ride! Join palaeontologist Ben Francischelli, as he gives you the scoop on these ancient cetaceans!

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How Palaeontologists Pieced Together the Strange Story of Whale Evolution

27 oktober 2020 door frank

“The ‘real’ whale story begins at about 47-48 million year old rocks in Pakistan and India,” said Sunil Bajpai, a palaeontologist at IIT Roorkee who followed the tracks of Sahni and Mishra. “It documents the transition of a whale-like mammal from land to water.” >> read more …

The Baleen Whale with Teeth

29 augustus 2020 door frank

Baleen whales are characterized by large keratinous racks in the upper palate (baleen) they use to scoop up millions of prey every day! But 25 million years ago, off the coast of southern Australia, a bizarre group of toothed baleen whales existed.

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An extinct large dolphin was a lot more like a killer whale

10 juli 2020 door frank

Now researchers have confirmed that an historical dolphin that lived throughout the Oligocene Epoch — 33.9 million to 23 million many years in the past — was the to start with cetacean (a kind of mammal) making use of echolocation to navigate underwater and fill the position of apex predator, a great deal like the recent-working day killer whale.

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3 miljoen jaar oud skelet uit Antwerpse haven nieuw puzzelstuk in evolutie walvissen

30 april 2020 door frank

Paleontologen hebben een nieuwe walvissensoort beschreven, die zo’n 3 miljoen jaar geleden in de Noordzee rondzwom. Antwerpibalaena liberatlas is een uitgestorven neefje van de huidige noordkapers. Het goedbewaarde fossiele skelet werd in 2013 gevonden bij de aanleg van de Kieldrechtsluis in de Antwerpse haven. >> lees verder …

Ancient marine crocs adapted like whales to ocean life – only earlier

22 april 2020 door frank

A wondrous lineage of crocodile relatives that developed into fast-swimming seagoing predators at a time when dinosaurs dominated the land adapted to life in the open ocean with a pivotal evolutionary modification also present in whales. But the crocs did it more than 100 million years earlier. >> Read more …

Why manatees are related to elephants, and whales are related to deer

25 februari 2020 door frank

Animals that resemble each other may not be closely related. Sometimes the setting shapes their bodies more than their ancestry. Manatees may look like whales or walruses, but that is only because they adapted to the marine environment in a similar way. Martha Foley and Curt stager talk about convergent evolution. >> listen …

Why don’t whales have saliva?

12 januari 2020 door frank

The adaptation 50 million years ago of a lineage of terrestrial mammals to aquatic environments is one of the most well understood events in mammalian evolutionary history. It’s also one of the most dramatic. >> read more …

Genes lost during the transition from land to water in cetaceans highlight genomic changes associated with aquatic adaptations

28 september 2019 door frank

The ancestors of modern cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) transitioned from a terrestrial to a fully aquatic lifestyle during the Eocene about 50 million years ago. This process constitutes one of the most marked macroevolutionary transitions in mammalian history and was accompanied by profound anatomical, physiological, and behavioral transformations that allowed cetaceans to adapt and … Meer lezen

Early whales swam doggy paddle across the ocean from India to Africa

14 september 2019 door frank

Some early whales may have swum using their arms as well as their legs, a bit like a dog paddling in water. Despite this primitive swimming style, they seem to have managed to spread long distances across the ocean, from India to the western tip of Africa at a minimum. – photo credits: Momotarou2012 [CC … Meer lezen

Van hertje tot walvis: de wonderlijke evolutie van de oceaangigant

26 juni 2019 door frank

In het Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht loopt een tentoonstelling over de evolutie van de walvisachtigen. Die oceaangiganten van vandaag stammen af van… een klein hertje. Bovendien heeft een Belgische wetenschapper recent een missing link beschreven. >> lees verder …

Researcher charts advances in marine mammal genetic sequencing

7 december 2016 door frank

Answers to evolutionary and ecological mysteries about marine mammal species may be closer at hand, thanks to advances in genetic sequencing techniques for so-called nonmodel organisms. Kristina Cammen, a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow in biology and soon-to-be assistant professor of marine mammal science at the University of Maine (starting May 2017), led the research … Meer lezen

The call of the sea: Mammalian evolutionary transitions back to the sea

27 juni 2016 door frank

Though mammals adapted on land, a new study by Maria Chikina and Nathan Clark has shown that during three major independent evolutionary events, a number of mammals harkened back to the sea. >> Continue …

Ontbrekende schakel walvisevolutie

3 december 2015 door frank

Wetenschappers uit Nieuw-Zeeland hebben een nieuwe prehistorische soort walvis geïdentificeerd die de ontbrekende schakel blijkt te zijn tussen de moderne baleinwalvis en hun uitgestorven voorouders die nog over een mond vol tanden beschikten. >> Lees artikel … >> Nl-vertaling …

Hoe walvissen zich aanpasten aan leven in het water

6 december 2013 door frank

Ansan (Korea), 24 november 2013 – Wetenschappers van The Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology zijn erachter gekomen hoe walvissen zich evolutionair aangepast hebben aan leven in water. Zij hebben daartoe genetisch materiaal van walvissen uitvoerig geanalyseerd. >> Lees verder … >> Oorspronkelijk artikel in Nature Genetics …