The Curious Tale

of Whales
Whales and dolphins are spectacular creatures.
Their ancestors climbed out of the ocean 360 mil-
lion years ago, developed lungs and legs, and
evolved into mammals. Then, 50 million years ago,
they walked back into the sea.
To survive there, they developed specialized
behaviors, which require even more special biology. Faroe Islands postage stamp
art featuring the blue whale
Perhaps most famous is echolocation. They move air between (Balaenoptera musculus).
sinus cavities to emit sound. When it bounces back to them, Credit: Postverk Føroya
they don’t hear it with their ears, but feel it in a fatty fluid in (Philatelic Office) (public domain),
their lower jaw. via Wikimedia Commons

Only toothed whales, like sperm whales, orcas, and dolphins,

can echolocate—a skill we think they developed to hunt prey,
especially squid, in the darkness of the deep ocean.
Baleen whales focused on other prey, floating shrimplike
creatures, and for this they developed comblike plates in place
of teeth.
They can’t echolocate but are known for their elaborate songs.
We think they use these for communication. But we’re not sure
how they produce them, since they don’t have vocal chords.
Both types of whales can hold their breath for 45 minutes or
longer. To do this, they reduce their heart rate and cut blood
flow to some organs, like the stomach, while providing it to
others, like the brain.
Even their blood is specialized. It can carry far more oxygen
than land-dwelling mammals, and they have much more of it.
Whales are an amazing example of what evolution can do,
given enough time.

Fact Sheet:
EarthDate.org Episode ED 071
Background: The Curious Tale of Whales
Synopsis: Blue whales are the largest animals that ever lived on Earth. They are almost as long as a
130-passenger Boeing 737 and more than twice as heavy. Their ancestors left the sea over 360 million years
ago and slowly evolved into carnivorous mammals. But about 55–50 million years ago, the predecessors
of the cetaceans—whales, dolphins, and porpoises—abruptly changed their evolutionary direction and
returned to rule the sea.

 Cetaceans are marine mammals. They live their lives  Reptiles, dinosaurs, and birds diversified from
entirely in the water but, like other mammals, are these original tetrapods, which were character-
warm-blooded, have lungs, and give birth rather than ized by their four appendages. Some tetrapods
lay eggs. evolved into warm-blooded, air-breathing mam-
 Cetaceans live in pods and are very social. mals that were fairly small, about 50 lbs or less.
 When the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs,
 Some superpods may include more than 1,000
about 65 million years ago, many of these
animals.
smaller mammals survived and expanded into
 The pods have complex social structure and environmental niches left open by the dinosaurs.
provide safety in numbers as well as group
feeding and migration.
 Older cetaceans care for younger ones in
nurseries.
 Groups have been known to stay with injured or
sick individuals, helping them to the surface for
air as needed.
 Cetaceans include about 90 species of whales,
dolphins, and porpoises. The two categories of
whales are baleen and toothed.
 There are about 15 species of baleen whales,
including blue whales and humpback whales.
 Baleen whales have hundreds of plates in
their mouths that are like huge combs made
of fingernail-like keratin that hangs from their
upper jaws.
 After enormous gulps of seawater, they use the
baleen plates to filter the water, then swallow
the marine life that remains in their mouths.
 Most cetaceans are toothed, and they eat their
prey like most carnivores. The sperm whale is
the largest of the toothed whales.
 Scientists have long pondered why air-breathing Skeletons of 34–56 million year old (Eocene) ancestors
mammals ended up as water dwellers. of whales showed progressive changes to their limbs.
A and B are from the Dorudon genus, and C and D from
 More than 360 million years ago, in the the Maiacetus.
Devonian period, vertebrates developed lungs
and appendages that could support their weight Credit: Doug Boyer (A, B) and Bonnie Miljour (C, D) (CC BY 2.5
[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5]), via Wikimedia
in air and left the competitive environment of
Commons
the sea for new environmental niches on land.

References: The Curious Tale of Whales

How Did Whales Evolve? | Smithsonian
How Whales Made the Dramatic Evolutionary Shift from Land to the Sea | Gizmodo
The Evolution of Whales | Berkeley.edu
Evolution of Cetaceans | Wikipedia
Cetacea | Wikipedia EarthDate.org
Welcome to the World of Whales and Dolphins | Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Fact Sheet:
Contributors: Juli Hennings, Harry Lynch Episode ED 071
Background: The Curious Tale of Whales
 About 10 million years later, one group of  Whales have to think about every breath they take
mammals that lived in coastal swamps re-entered and must be awake to inhale and exhale—they
the aquatic realm. These ancestors of the
cetaceans evolved to be able to swim and live replace 80–90 percent of the air in their lungs
full-time in this unchallenged niche. each time they take a breath. (Humans breathe
 Fossils show vestiges of rear limbs that involuntarily and exchange only 10–15 percent of
shrank as they became increasingly useless. the air in our lungs each time we inhale and exhale,
 The closest living relatives of cetaceans are which is comparatively inefficient.)
hippos, which descended separately from the  When cetaceans surface after a dive, they forcibly
same mammals that lived on the water’s edge.
exhale all their air first— forming their famous
 To live in the water, the earliest cetaceans had to spouts—then take a fresh, clean breath. (After
make amazing adaptations. holding our breath, humans inhale first, then exhale
 Cetaceans can drink seawater. The salt concen- and finally take a fresh breath, delaying access to
tration in their blood is lower than that in sea- oxygen.)
water, and their long, flat kidneys have evolved  Whale lungs take up 3 percent of their body size
to be able to secrete salt. (compared to 7 percent for humans); it’s not just
 Hearing underwater is a challenge for land mam- relative lung size that provides their breathing
mals, but cetaceans have developed spongy capability, it’s how the oxygen is stored within their
parts in their auditory system that are encased bodies.
in dense, bony structures that enable hearing  Hemoglobin stores and transports oxygen in the
deep below the water. body. Whale blood has twice the hemoglobin
 Some cetaceans are capable of echolocation; (60 percent) of human blood (30 percent),
and whales have a larger volume of blood
they can figure out the size and shape of an ob- (10–20 percent) in their bodies compared to
ject, how far away it is, and how fast it is moving, humans (7 percent).
making it possible for them to catch prey in total  Human muscles store oxygen in myoglobin so it
darkness. can be released when we need it. Whales have
 Cetaceans have developed a wide array of 30 percent more myoglobin than humans in their
sounds that they use for communication, from muscles; the myoglobin stores 35 percent of a
whale’s oxygen supply.
songs to clicks and grunts.
 In most mammals, high concentrations of
 The most amazing adaptation is the ability to stay myoglobin clump together, rendering the oxygen
underwater for long periods of time. Whales can supply they carry useless. Whale myoglobin,
dive to more than 6,000 ft; humpbacks can stay however, evolved to be positively charged—
each of the myoglobin proteins repels the
underwater for about 45 minutes, and sperm whales others, which keeps it ready to provide oxygen
have been known to stay underwater for up to when needed.
2 hours. How do they do it?  For most mammals, water pressure deeper than
 Whales can cut their heart rate in half to conserve 300 ft generates reactive oxygen species that
oxygen. Oxygen to certain organs, like the stomach, can damage DNA, but cetaceans have evolved to
can be placed on hold, while other organs, like the produce extra amounts of an antioxidant known as
brain, get a constant supply of crucial oxygen while glutathione that prevents this cellular damage.
underwater.

References: The Curious Tale of Whales

How Did Whales Evolve? | Smithsonian
How Whales Made the Dramatic Evolutionary Shift from Land to the Sea | Gizmodo
The Evolution of Whales | Berkeley.edu
Evolution of Cetaceans | Wikipedia
Cetacea | Wikipedia EarthDate.org
Welcome to the World of Whales and Dolphins | Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Fact Sheet:
Contributors: Juli Hennings, Harry Lynch Episode ED 071
Background: The Curious Tale of Whales
 The largest of the cetaceans is the incredible blue
whale.
 Blue whales are filter-feeding baleen whales that
spend their summers in polar waters but migrate
southward during the winters.
 They are the size of the fuselage of a
130-passenger Boeing 737; the larger females grow
to as much as 110 ft long.
 They can weigh 200 tons, equivalent to the weight
of 33 African elephants.
 Their tongues alone can weigh as much as an
entire elephant!
 Their hearts weigh as much as a small automobile,
and their heartbeat can be detected 2 miles away.
 Blue whale calls can be louder than a jet engine,
and their songs are audible up to 1,000 miles away.
 They have 300–400 baleen plates made of black
keratin on each side of their mouths. The plates
filter out seawater, leaving a “bite” that contains
about a ton of shrimplike krill and small fish. They
need to eat up to 4 tons per day.
 When born, their calves weigh 3 tons and are 25 ft
long. The first year, the babies gain about 200 lb a
day by drinking their mothers’ milk.
 Blue whales may live 80–90 years. After whales
die, researchers can count layers on their waxy
earplugs to determine their age. The oldest known This Evogram shows the sequence of whale evolution;
blue whale was 110. their closest cousin, the hippo, evolved separately.
 Whalers hunted these giants of the sea since the Credit: The Evolution of Whales | Berkeley
1800s. More than 360,000 were slaughtered from
1900 to 1960 so their fat could be rendered into
whale oil. The International Whaling Commission
finally protected them in 1966, but their
population recovery has been very slow.

References: The Curious Tale of Whales

How Did Whales Evolve? | Smithsonian
How Whales Made the Dramatic Evolutionary Shift from Land to the Sea | Gizmodo
The Evolution of Whales | Berkeley.edu
Evolution of Cetaceans | Wikipedia
Cetacea | Wikipedia EarthDate.org
Welcome to the World of Whales and Dolphins | Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Fact Sheet:
Contributors: Juli Hennings, Harry Lynch Episode ED 071