The rise of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) to become the dominating megafauna of the oceans happened remarkably quickly, within only 50 million years since some sort of hippopotamus-like species took the plunge to go fully aquatic. Their demise, which very nearly might have led to the extinction of a number of species, happened even more rapidly, within less than a century.
A couple of recent studies have enlightened us on the rise of whales, and ongoing news regarding whaling remind us of their entirely human-made fall, so I combined these two to the feature called:
The rise and fall of whales
Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 19, 7 October 2024, Pages R877-R879
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 .
Baleen whales like this humpback typically feed on krill. (Photo: Admitter/Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0).)
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