I knew about orca females enjoying a post-reproductive lifespan (ie going through menopause), but in recent years the number of non-human mammalian species doing this has grown to five, and all of them are toothed whales, which is intriguing. So I took a new paper on the evolution of this trait in whales as an occasion to write about the menopause of whales an women. (I recently had Of elephants and men, so I'd better give poor old John Steinbeck a rest now.)
The feature is out now:
Of whales and women
Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 7, 8 April 2024, Pages R261-R263
FREE access to full text and PDF download
See also my Mastodon thread where I highlighted all CB features of 2024.
The thread for 2023 is here .
Killer whales (Orcinus orca) typically spend their lifetime in family groups led by a matriarch. (Photo: Courtesy of Dr Brandon Southall, NMFS/OPR (CC BY 2.0 Deed).)
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