1 Topic : 5 Facts
How well do you know the ocean?
This regular feature will help acquaint you with our blue planet.
Topic: Cetaceans Over Time
Every whale, dolphin, and porpoise is the descendant of land-dwelling mammals that
completed their return to the sea around 40 million years ago.
Like all mammals, the cetaceans are warm-blooded, give birth to live young, the mothers
produce milk to sustain their young, and they even have sparse hair at some point in
their development.
The cetaceans are most closely related to the artiodactyls which are represented by
cows, pigs, hippos, sheep, giraffes, and camels.
The transition from land to sea took approximately 12 million years, as measured by thecurrent fossil record.
The division between baleen whales and toothed whales happened around the same time, about 30 million years ago during the late Eocene.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
SEVENSEAS - 111
February 2017 - Ocean Literacy