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
Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication)
Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)
See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.
Last year's thread is here .
Baleen whales like this humpback typically feed on krill. (Photo: Admitter/Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0).)
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