21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments
linkedin post 2020-09-13 03:13:37

linkedin post 2020-09-13 03:13:37

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TRANSITIONAL WHALES. "Archaeoceti are basal cetaceans that document the evolutionary transition of whales from land to sea during the Eocene before the appearance of modern Mysticeti and Odontoceti." Wonderful figures of these transitional whale skeletons. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0004366 View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-09-13 03:32:11

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SMELL AND TASTE. "We showed that, though mysticetes possess functional olfactory bulbs, they had lost the D domain of the olfactory bulb during the Eocene Epoch. In addition, all modern whales have lost the functional sweet, umami and bitter taste receptors before the Odontoceti-Mysticeti split." https://lnkd.in/dcqHGKG View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-09-13 03:30:34

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OLFACTORY BULB. "We provide the whole-genome sequence of a mysticete and show that mysticetes lack the dorsal domain of the OB, an area known to induce innate avoidance behavior against odors of predators and spoiled foods. Genomic and fossil data suggest that mysticetes lost the dorsal domain of the OB before the Odontoceti-Mysticeti split. Furthermore, we found that all modern cetaceans are revealed to have lost the functional taste receptors." (OB = olfactory bulb). https://lnkd.in/dcqHGKG View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-09-13 03:29:05

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SENSORY LOSS. "While olfaction is one of the most important senses in most terrestrial mammals, it is absent in modern toothed whales (Odontoceti, Cetacea). Furthermore, behavioral evidence suggests that gustation is very limited. In contrast, their aquatic sistergroup, baleen whales (Mysticeti) retain small but functional olfactory organs, and nothing is known about their gustation.' https://lnkd.in/dcqHGKG View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-09-13 03:26:47

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SENSORY ADAPTATIONS TO WATER. "Cetaceans are a premier model of wholesale sensory evolution, in which anatomical changes related to sensory perception dovetail nicely with molecular evolutionary patterns, including the pseudogenization of some visual opsins, olfactory receptors, vomeronasal receptors, and taste receptors." https://lnkd.in/dzaJY6g View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-09-13 03:25:28

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UPPER LIMIT. "Cetaceans, together with primates, have reached the upper range of mammalian brain size. Cetacea include species with the largest brains to have ever evolved and species that rival anthropoid primates for brain size relative to body size, superseded only by our own species." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/evo.12197/full View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments
linkedin post 2020-09-13 03:22:40

linkedin post 2020-09-13 03:22:40

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FAST MATURITY. "The presence of partially mineralized permanent first molars in the fetal skull indicates precocial development, which may have been a key life history trait in early whales facilitating the transition from land to sea." (Precocial species have relatively mobile babies). http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0004366 View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments
linkedin post 2020-09-13 03:20:46

linkedin post 2020-09-13 03:20:46

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BIGGER BIRTHS. "With their innominate decoupled from the vertebral column, the birth canal in basilosaurids may have been considerably larger than that in protocetids. This would have permitted birth of larger, more precocial infants, and we would predict that a near-term basilosaurid fetal skeleton, if found intact, would be positioned to be born tail-first as is seen in living whales." (Innominate are bones of the pelvis). http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0004366 View in LinkedIn
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