Whale related question ?

[mrjosh]

Hello, i was just wondering if someone could let me know the evolutionary background of whales and how they went from being land dwelling mammals to what they are today ? Is it possible that the reason whales are so large is that they took advantage of the buoyancy water provides, and evolved becoming larger and larger exploiting the environment they were occupying ? Cheers - Josh

[Darby]

http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/whale.ev.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/

[biohazard]

They certainly did take the advantage of buoyancy in water: the largest of whales are so heavy that they would essentially crush under their own weight on dry land - but that's not a problem in water :)

[robsabba]

Hello, i was just wondering if someone could let me know the evolutionary background of whales and how they went from being land dwelling mammals to what they are today ? Is it possible that the reason whales are so large is that they took advantage of the buoyancy water provides, and evolved becoming larger and larger exploiting the environment they were occupying ? Cheers - Josh

Whales are most closely related to hippos. They are thus relatives of the even-tooled ungulates, and most likely evolved from them. The fossil record shows that early whales had rear legs, and special traits found today only in even-tooled ungulates. They were in the beginning only semi-aquatic, then fully aquatic, and then evolved to live in the deep oceans. Early whales all have teeth, not baleen. Baleen was a fairly recent adaption.