• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

World-first research sheds light on the origin of the baleen whale

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
November 30, 2016
in Science News
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram
IMAGE

Credit: Ben Healley

Monash University scientists have played a key role in discovering the origin of filter feeding in baleen whales — the largest animal known to have ever existed.

The discovery is detailed in a paper co-written with international researchers and palaeontologists from Museum Victoria. 'Alfred' the 25- million-year-old fossilised whale skull was unveiled at the Museum today.

"Alfred shows how ancient baleen whales made the evolutionary switch from biting prey with teeth to filtering using baleen," said Monash Science Senior Research Fellow, Dr Alistair Evans, one of the authors of the paper.

"They first became suction feeders. Feeding in this way resulted in reduced need for teeth, so over time their teeth were lost before baleen appeared."

There has been a lot of mystery around how and when baleen first formed.

"But we now have long-sought evidence of how whales evolved from having teeth to hair-like baleen – triggering the rise of the biggest beasts on the planet," said Dr Evans. Nick-named 'Alfred', the fossil skull is from an extinct group of whales called aetiocetids, which despite having teeth were an early branch of the baleen whale family tree.

Alfred's teeth show exceptionally rare evidence of feeding behaviour suggesting an entirely new evolutionary scenario – before losing teeth and evolving baleen, these whales used suction to catch prey.

Today's baleen whales — such as the Blue and Humpback — don't have teeth. Instead, they have evolved the hair-like structure called baleen that allows them to filter huge amounts of tiny plankton, like krill, from seawater.

"Filter-feeding is the key to the baleen whales' evolutionary success," said Dr Erich Fitzgerald, Senior Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology, Museums Victoria.

"But what has really eluded scientists since Charles Darwin is exactly how whales made the complex evolutionary change from biting prey with teeth to filtering plankton using baleen."

This unusual type of tooth wear is only seen in a few living marine mammals (such as walrus) that use a back-and-forth movement of their tongue to suck in prey, and incidentally rough material like sand.

Alfred shows how ancient baleen whales made the evolutionary switch from biting prey with teeth to filtering using baleen: they first became suction feeders. Feeding in this way resulted in reduced need for teeth, so over time their teeth were lost before baleen appeared.

The research team is now uncovering the rest of Alfred's skeleton, as well as other fossils from Australia that provide exciting insights on how baleen whales began.

###

The research was supported by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral fellowship to Felix Marx, an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship to Alistair Evans, an Australian Research Council Linkage Project to Alistair Evans and Erich Fitzgerald and an Australian Postgraduate Award to Travis Park. 'Alfred' was collected and generously donated to Museums Victoria by J. and G. Goedert, S. Benham and D. Reed.

The research is published in Museums Victoria's peer-reviewed scientific journal Memoirs of Museums Victoria and available via the link https://museumvictoria.com.au/pages/383548/071-082_MMV75_Marx_3_WEB.pdf

Media Contact

Monash Media
[email protected]
61-399-034-840
@MonashUni

http://www.monash.edu.au

############

Story Source: Materials provided by Scienmag

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Figure 1

Revolutionary battery technology to boost EV range 10-fold or more

March 29, 2023
Cubane molecule

‘Chemical cube’ tools for building new drugs and agrochemicals

March 29, 2023

Detecting coral biodiversity in seawater samples

March 29, 2023

Light-bending gravity reveals one of the biggest black holes ever found

March 29, 2023
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • ChatPandaGPT

    Insilico Medicine brings AI-powered “ChatPandaGPT” to its target discovery platform

    66 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 17
  • Northern and southern resident orcas hunt differently, which may help explain the decline of southern orcas

    44 shares
    Share 18 Tweet 11
  • Skipping breakfast may compromise the immune system

    43 shares
    Share 17 Tweet 11
  • Insular dwarfs and giants more likely to go extinct

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Revolutionary battery technology to boost EV range 10-fold or more

‘Chemical cube’ tools for building new drugs and agrochemicals

Detecting coral biodiversity in seawater samples

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 48 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In