DOCSLIB.ORG

Pakicetus Were Similar to Land Images

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Pakicetus Were Similar to Land Images S u p p l e m e n t Whale Ears By Dr. Carl Werner A p p e n d i x 1 S u p p l e m e n t S u p p l e m e n t First Edition Version 7 Introduction © Copyright May 2014, Audio Visual Consultants, Inc. Author’s Note: This supplement to Appen- Before proceeding, it would be best to first Copyright © 2014 by Carl Werner. All rights reserved. dix F of Evolution: The Grand Experiment (3rd read Chapter 13 and Appendix F of the 3rd No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any edition) provides important information about edition of Evolution: The Grand Experiment. manner whatsoever without written permission of the the function and gross anatomy of the external Next, it is very important to read the press publisher except in the case of brief quotations in articles and middle ear of land animals, whales and release at TheGrandExperiment.com under the and reviews. For more information contact Dr. Werner purported “walking whales.” This material was “Whale Evolution” tab. Finally, take a brief through the Grand Experiment web page. not included in the book, the e-book or the video look at the chart below detailing the classifica- series because of space considerations. tion of whales and dolphins in the mammal order called Cetacea. You will then be prepared Please visit our web site for other great titles: to better understand this important information. www.TheGrandExperiment.com Cetacea Odontocete Mysticete (Cetacea with Teeth) (Cetacea without Teeth) Toothed Whales Toothed Dolphins Baleen Whales -Orca Whale -Bottlenose Dolphin -Humpback Whale -Sperm Whale -Spinner Dolphin -Gray Whale -Beluga Whale -Atlantic Spotted Dolphin -Right Whale -Etc. -Etc. -Etc. 2 A p p e n d i x A p p e n d i x 3 S u p p l e m e n t S u p p l e m e n t Cetacean Versus Land Mammal Ears External Ears of Cetaceans versus Land Mammals There are marked differences between the The external ears (pinnae or auricles) of land external ears (pinnae or auricles) of land mam- mammals are made of soft tissues (skin and mals and cetaceans. Land mammals (as seen on cartilage, not bone). Because the pinnae are soft, the next page) have large, visible, external ears. when an animal dies, the, external ears rot and These external ears collect sound waves and fun- generally are not fossilized. (Occasionally, a bat nel them into the ear canal. By contrast, ceta- fossil is found in Mesel, Germany with the ears ceans (whales and dolphins) do not have visible and wing membranes preserved, but this is rare. external ears (as seen on the bottom of the next This can be seen on page 103 of Evolution The page).1, 2 Grand Experiment.). Since external ears are not There are also marked differences between the preserved as fossils, this lack of fossilization has ear canals of land animals and odontocetes allowed scientists to create images of missing (whales and dolphins with teeth). In land mam- links by adding external ears to land animals. mals, the ear canal channels sound from the Imagine if a scientist found a found a skull of Land animals, such as this dog, have large external ear to the ear drum. In toothed whales, a land mammal that he or she incorrectly be- ears for collecting slow-moving sound waves. the ear canal ends in a blind pouch.3 lieved was a whale. If the scientist commis- Toothed cetaceans, such as this orca (below sioned an artist to create a painting, the scientist Toothed whales and dolphins do not use their left) and this dolphin (below right), do not have might ask the artist to place tiny external ears or external ears or ear canals to hear when they are external ears but have small openings on each underwater. In toothed whales and dolphins, the no external ears on the land mammal to repre- sent a partially-evolved whale-like animal. By side of their head. This is because toothed jaw bone absorbs underwater sounds and acts as whales do not use their ears to hear under water. the external ear. Inside the jaw bone there is a doing this, one could create a walking whale large fat pad that transmits sound directly to the from a land mammal skull. This, of course, middle ear bypassing the ear canal completely. would be pure conjecture based on no fossil This system is extremely efficient and allows evidence. This has been done repeatedly in the toothed whales and dolphins to determine the walking whale drawings currently in museums direction of sound, something that a land animal and textbooks, which will be revealed shortly. cannot differentiate underwater. Detecting the direction of sound under water is difficult for land mammals because sound travels four times faster in water as compared to air. Bottlenose dolphin, © 2014 AVC Inc., Photo by Carl Werner 4 A p p e n d i x A p p e n d i x 5 S u p p l e m e n t S u p p l e m e n t Adding Whale Ears to Land Mammal Skulls A Look now at these drawings of the three most land animal. (Ambulocetus, A and B, had a land prominent “walking whales” promoted by animal ear bulla, a land animal eye socket scientists who support evolution. In each case, location, and a land animal cheekbone. It did the artist drew or painted an animal with small not have a blowhole as shown here. Rodhoce- or absent (whale-like) external ears. In reality, tus, C and D, did not have a whale’s tail (fluke) the internal ear bones, and their function, of and did not have front flippers as shown in these Ambulocetus and Pakicetus were similar to land images. Rather, Rodhocetus walked on the tips mammal internal ear bones. 4, 5, 6 Imagine if these of its front hooved toes, similar to a pronghorn same drawings had been made with large exter- or deer. Pakicetus, E and F, did not have flippers nal ears. These animals then would then look or low set eyes as shown below. Also it did not more like land mammals. have a blowhole as originally proposed. Rather, it had a nose and eye socket location similar to a Based on interviews in Appendix F of Evolu- land mammal. In each case the artists made the tion: The Grand Experiment (3rd edition), each ears whale-like (absent of ears) or partially of these “walking whales” turned out to be a B evolved (with small partial external ears) based purely on conjecture. Clockwise from top: A: Ambulocetus at the University of Michigan D: Rodhocetus, University of Michigan Ann Ar- Ann Arbor Natural History Museum, 2001. bor Natural History Museum, 2001 B: Ambulocetus on display at the Smithsonian E: Pakicetus from the Natural History Museum National Museum of Natural History, 2011. London website, 2014. C C: Rodhocetus as pictured on the cover of Sci- F: Pakicetus from the cover of Science, drawn ence. Drawn by John Klausmeyer of the Uni- by Karen Klitz, of the University of Michigan versity of Michigan Exhibit Museum, 2001. Exhibit Museum, 1983. E F D 6 A p p e n d i x A p p e n d i x 7 SA u P p P p E l N e D m I e X n F t SA u P p P p E l N e D m I e X n F t Auditory Bulla: Attached or Unattached Land Animal—Auditory Bulla Attached Middle Ear Bones of Land Animals: The bone electrical energy in the inner ear and sent to the * encasing the three small bones of the middle ear brain. The brain interprets the electrical signals of toothed whales is called the auditory bulla or coming from the ear as sound. the tympanic and is very different from the The round walnut-shaped bone that encases auditory bulla of land mammals. the three bones of the middle ear (auditory bulla As you recall, in land mammals sound waves or tympanic) is indicated by the black arrow are funneled by the large cartilaginous external below. In land animals, the auditory bulla is ears into the ear canal (red asterisk below). attached to the bottom of the skull. In contrast, Sound travels down the ear canal (dotted red line the auditory bulla in toothed whales is not below) to the eardrum. When the sound waves attached to the skull but floats in fat underneath reach the end of the ear canal, they cause the ear the bottom of the skull. When a whale dies and drum (solid green line below) to vibrate. Note the fat surrounding the auditory bulla rots away, that the land animal skull below has been turned the auditory bulla simply falls off the skull! This upside down so that you can see the opening of is one easy way to distinguish a land animal Close up view of otter bulla. Close up view of coyote bulla. the ear canal and the auditory bulla (where the skull from a toothed whale skull. three tiny bones of the middle ear are contained). On the next four pages, the reader can view Otter (Land Mammal) Coyote (Land Mammal) The vibration of the eardrum (solid green line two land animal skulls and two whale skulls to In these two below) causes the bones of the middle ear to view and compare the differences between the land mammal skulls, move.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Whale Evolution Lab – Page 1
    Whale Evolution Lab – Page 1 Whale Evolution Lab Adapted from http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb PRELAB (recommended)… FROM LAND TO WATER: A Whale Evolution Internet Activity http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/whalekiosk.html Click on “SCREEN” to “Find Out More” A. Anatomy B. Fossil record C. Molecular evidence A. WHALE ANATOMY 1. What does the Latin word “cetus” mean? 2. What three groups of organisms are considered cetaceans? 3. What are the two subgroups of cetaceans? 4. What characterizes the subgroup Odontoceti? 5. What characterizes the subgroup Mysticeti? 6. Follow the instructions given to compare anatomical parts. Click on the labels to compare the whale’s anatomy with that of a fish and a cat. Fill out the chart below with your answers to each structure, by placing an “X” under the organism whose structure is more similar to the whale’s. Structure FISH CAT Structure FISH CAT Ears Forelimb Eyes Jaw Lungs Mammary gland 7. According to the anatomical evidence, which organism is more closely related to a whale…fish or cat? 8. Draw and label the cladogram that you created for the whale, fish, and cat below. 9. What is the relationship between whales and cats? B. FOSSIL RECORD 1. What is a fossil? 2. What are the most likely parts to become fossilized? 3. What are trace fossils? List some examples. 4. What is a coprolite? 5. What fossilized anatomical structure can be useful to anatomists? 6. Compare the fossil teeth of whales to the other organisms on the website. What sort of organism has fossil teeth most similar to whale teeth? 7.
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Jefferson Meg Tooth
    The ECPHORA The Newsletter of the Calvert Marine Museum Fossil Club Volume 30 Number 3 September 2015 Thomas Jefferson Meg Tooth Features Thomas Jefferson Meg The catalogue number Review; Walking is: ANSP 959 Whales Inside The tooth came from Ricehope Estate, Snaggletooth Shark Cooper River, Exhibit South Carolina. Tiktaalik Clavatulidae In 1806, it was Juvenile Bald Eagle originally collected or Sculpting Whale Shark owned by Dr. William Moroccan Fossils Reid. Prints in the Sahara Volunteer Outing to Miocene-Pliocene National Geographic coastal plain sediments. Dolphins in the Chesapeake Sloth Tooth Found SharkFest Shark Iconography in Pre-Columbian Panama Hippo Skulls CT- Scanned Squalus sp. Teeth Sperm Whale Teeth On a recent trip to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (Philadelphia), Collections Manager Ned Gilmore gave John Nance and me a behind -the-scenes highlights tour. Among the fossils that belonged to Thomas☼ Jefferson (left; American Founding Father, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and third President of the United States) was this Carcharocles megalodon tooth. Jefferson’s interests and knowledge were encyclopedic; a delight to know that they included paleontology. Hand by J. Nance. Photo by S. Godfrey. Jefferson portrait from: http://www.biography.com/people/thomas-jefferson-9353715 ☼ CALVERT MARINE MUSEUM www.calvertmarinemuseum.com 2 The Ecphora September 2015 Book Review: The Walking 41 million years ago and has worldwide distribution. It was fully aquatic, although it did have residual Whales hind limbs. In later chapters, Professor Thewissen George F. Klein discusses limb development and various genetic factors that make whales, whales. This is a The full title of this book is The Walking complicated topic, but I found these chapters very Whales — From Land to Water in Eight Million clear and readable.
    [Show full text]
  • Locomotor Evolution in the Earliest Cetaceans: Functional Model, Modem Analogues, and Paleontological Evidence
    Paleobiology, 23(4), 1997, pp. 482-490 Locomotor evolution in the earliest cetaceans: functional model, modem analogues, and paleontological evidence J. G. M. Thewissen and E E. Fish Abstract.-We discuss a model for the origin of cetacean swimming that is based on hydrodynamic and kinematic data of modem mammalian swimmers. The model suggests that modem otters (Mustelidae: Lutrinae) display several of the locomotor modes that early cetaceans used at different stages in the transition from land to water. We use mustelids and other amphibious mammals to analyze the morphology of the Eocene cetacean Ambulocetus natans, and we conclude that Ambu- locetus may have locomoted by a combination of pelvic paddling and dorsoventral undulations of the tail, and that its locomotor mode in water resembled that of the modem otter Lutra most closely. We also suggest that cetacean locomotion may have resembled that of the freshwater otter Pteronuru at a stage beyond Ambulocetus. 1. G. M. Thewissen. Department qf Anatomy, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. Roots- town, Ohio 44242 E E. Fish Department of Biology, West Chester Unrwrsrty. West Chester, Pmnsvlmnia 19380 Accepted. 7 July 1997 Introduction that wen the earliest whales had adopted modem ways of swimming. In spite of noting The locomotor morphology of terrestrial differences in overall morphology and muscle mammals is very different from that of aquatic development, Kellogg (1936) proposed that mammals. The musculoskeletal system of swimming mammals displays conspicuous late Eocene Basilosaurus had a tail fluke and specializations that can be considered as ad- implied that it swam by dorsoventral oscilla- aptations for life in the water.
    [Show full text]
  • WHALE HUNT: SEARCHING for WHALE FOSSILS: a SHORTER NARRATIVE More Suitable for Teacher-Directed “Whale Hunt”
    WHALE HUNT: SEARCHING FOR WHALE FOSSILS: a SHORTER NARRATIVE More Suitable for Teacher-Directed “Whale Hunt” 1. We have NO fossils of modern whales earlier than about 25 million years ago (mya). However, for many years, we have been finding a number of fossils of various primitive whales (archaeocetes) between 25 and 45 million years old, and somewhat different from modern whales, e.g. with very distinctive teeth An example of these early whales would be Dorudon. Place the fossil picture strip of Dorudon at about 36 mya on your timeline (actual range about 39-36 mya); (“mya”= millions of years ago). 2. As more fossils have been discovered from the early Eocene (55 to 34 mya), we searched for a land mammal from which whales most likely evolved. The group of animals that had features like those distinctive teeth that are also found in the earliest primitive whales, was called the Mesonychids. A typical example of these animals was Pachyaena. Mesonychids also had hooves, suggesting that whales may be related to other animals with hooves, like cows, horses, deer and pigs. Place the Pachyaena strip at about the 55 mya level on your timeline. Mesonychids lived from 58-34 mya. 3. In 1983, all we had were these primitive whales and mesonychids, with a big gap in between. This year, paleontologist Philip Gingerich was searching in Eocene deposits in Pakistan, and found the skull of an amazing fossil. It had teeth like the Dorudon whale, with whale-like ear bones and other features, but it was much older (50 mya), and there were indications that it had four legs.
    [Show full text]
  • The Walking Whales
    The Walking Whales From Land to Water in Eight Million Years J. G. M. “Hans” Thewissen with illustrations by Jacqueline Dillard university of california press The Walking Whales The Walking Whales From Land to Water in Eight Million Years J. G. M. “Hans” Thewissen with illustrations by Jacqueline Dillard university of california press University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2014 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thewissen, J. G. M., author. The walking whales : from land to water in eight million years / J.G.M. Thewissen ; with illustrations by Jacqueline Dillard. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-520-27706-9 (cloth : alk. paper)— isbn 978-0-520-95941-5 (e-book) 1. Whales, Fossil—Pakistan. 2. Whales, Fossil—India. 3. Whales—Evolution. 4. Paleontology—Pakistan. 5. Paleontology—India. I. Title. QE882.C5T484 2015 569′.5—dc23 2014003531 Printed in China 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48–1992 (r 2002) (Permanence of Paper). Cover illustration (clockwise from top right): Basilosaurus, Ambulocetus, Indohyus, Pakicetus, and Kutchicetus.
    [Show full text]
  • How Many Species of Mammals Are There?
    Journal of Mammalogy, 99(1):1–14, 2018 DOI:10.1093/jmammal/gyx147 INVITED PAPER How many species of mammals are there? CONNOR J. BURGIN,1 JOCELYN P. COLELLA,1 PHILIP L. KAHN, AND NATHAN S. UPHAM* Department of Biological Sciences, Boise State University, 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID 83725, USA (CJB) Department of Biology and Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico, MSC03-2020, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA (JPC) Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA (PLK) Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA (NSU) Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL 60605, USA (NSU) 1Co-first authors. * Correspondent: [email protected] Accurate taxonomy is central to the study of biological diversity, as it provides the needed evolutionary framework for taxon sampling and interpreting results. While the number of recognized species in the class Mammalia has increased through time, tabulation of those increases has relied on the sporadic release of revisionary compendia like the Mammal Species of the World (MSW) series. Here, we present the Mammal Diversity Database (MDD), a digital, publically accessible, and updateable list of all mammalian species, now available online: https://mammaldiversity.org. The MDD will continue to be updated as manuscripts describing new species and higher taxonomic changes are released. Starting from the baseline of the 3rd edition of MSW (MSW3), we performed a review of taxonomic changes published since 2004 and digitally linked species names to their original descriptions and subsequent revisionary articles in an interactive, hierarchical database. We found 6,495 species of currently recognized mammals (96 recently extinct, 6,399 extant), compared to 5,416 in MSW3 (75 extinct, 5,341 extant)—an increase of 1,079 species in about 13 years, including 11 species newly described as having gone extinct in the last 500 years.
    [Show full text]
  • Not for Sale
    NOT FOR SALE © Roberts and Company Publishers, ISBN: 9781936221448, due August 23, 2013, For examination purposes only FINAL PAGES NOT FOR SALE The earliest whales, such as the 47-million-year-old Ambulocetus, still had legs. Their anatomy gives us clues to how whales made the transition from land to sea. © Roberts and Company Publishers, ISBN: 9781936221448, due August 23, 2013, For examination purposes only FINAL PAGES NOT FOR SALE Walking 1 Whales Introducing Evolution ne of the best feelings paleontologists can ever have is to realize that they’ve just found a fossil that will fll an empty space in our understanding Oof the history of life. Hans Thewissen got to enjoy that feeling one day in 1993, as he dug a 47-million-year-old fossil out of a hillside in Pakistan. As he picked away the rocks surrounding the FIGURE 1.1 bones of a strange mammal, he suddenly realized what he had Paleontologist Hans Thewissen has discovered many of the bones of found: a whale with legs. Ambulocetus in Pakistan. A hundred million years ago, not a single whale swam in all the world’s oceans. Whales did not yet exist, but their ancestors did. At the time, they were small, furry mammals that walked on land. Over millions of years, some of the descendants of those ancestors underwent a mind-boggling transformation. They lost their legs, traded their nostrils for a blowhole, and became crea- tures of the sea. This profound change was the result of evolution. 3 © Roberts and Company Publishers, ISBN: 9781936221448, due August 23, 2013, For examination purposes only FINAL PAGES NOTThis bookFOR is an introduction to that SALE process.
    [Show full text]
  • A Brief History of Whale Evolution: As Supported by The
    A Brief History of Whale Evolution As Supported By the Fossil Record BIOB 272 – Genetics and Evolution Presented by Mindy Flanders Presented for Rick Henry December 8, 2017 Cetaceans—whales, dolphins, and porpoises—are so different from other animals that, until recently, scientists were unable to identify their closest relatives. As any elementary student knows, a whale is not a fish. That means that despite the similarities in where they live and how they look, whales are not at all like salmon or even sharks. Carolus Linnaeus, known for classifying plants and animals, noted in the 1750s that “whales breathe air through lungs not gills; are warm blooded; and have many other anatomical differences that distinguish them from fish” (Prothero, 2015). Other characteristics cetaceans share with all other mammals are: they have hair (at some point in their life), they give birth to live young, and they nurse their young with milk. This implies that whales evolved from other mammals and, because ancestral mammals were land animals, that whales had land ancestors (Thewissen & Bajpai, 2001). But before they had land ancestors they had water ancestors. The ancestors of fish lived in water, too. Up until 375 million years ago (mya), everything other than plants and insects lived in water, but it was around that time that fish and land animals began to diverge. A series of fossils represent the fish-to-tetrapod transition that occurred during the Late Devonian Period 359-383 mya (Herron & Freeman, 2014). In search of a new food source, or to escape predators more than twice their size (Prothero, 2015), the first tetrapods pushed themselves out of the swamps and began to live on land (Switek, 2010).
    [Show full text]
  • Sound Transmission in Archaic and Modern Whales: Anatomical Adaptations for Underwater Hearing
    THE ANATOMICAL RECORD 290:716–733 (2007) Sound Transmission in Archaic and Modern Whales: Anatomical Adaptations for Underwater Hearing SIRPA NUMMELA,1,2* J.G.M. THEWISSEN,1 SUNIL BAJPAI,3 4 5 TASEER HUSSAIN, AND KISHOR KUMAR 1Department of Anatomy, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, Rootstown, Ohio 2Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 3Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Uttaranchal, India 4Department of Anatomy, Howard University, College of Medicine, Washington, DC 5Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, Uttaranchal, India ABSTRACT The whale ear, initially designed for hearing in air, became adapted for hearing underwater in less than ten million years of evolution. This study describes the evolution of underwater hearing in cetaceans, focusing on changes in sound transmission mechanisms. Measurements were made on 60 fossils of whole or partial skulls, isolated tympanics, middle ear ossicles, and mandibles from all six archaeocete families. Fossil data were compared with data on two families of modern mysticete whales and nine families of modern odontocete cetaceans, as well as five families of non- cetacean mammals. Results show that the outer ear pinna and external auditory meatus were functionally replaced by the mandible and the man- dibular fat pad, which posteriorly contacts the tympanic plate, the lateral wall of the bulla. Changes in the ear include thickening of the tympanic bulla medially, isolation of the tympanoperiotic complex by means of air sinuses, functional replacement of the tympanic membrane by a bony plate, and changes in ossicle shapes and orientation. Pakicetids, the ear- liest archaeocetes, had a land mammal ear for hearing in air, and used bone conduction underwater, aided by the heavy tympanic bulla.
    [Show full text]
  • The Monophyly of Toothed Whales and the Paraphyly of River Dolphins
    Retroposon analysis of major cetacean lineages: The monophyly of toothed whales and the paraphyly of river dolphins Masato Nikaido†, Fumio Matsuno†, Healy Hamilton‡, Robert L. Brownell, Jr.§, Ying Cao†¶, Wang Dingʈ, Zhu Zuoyanʈ, Andrew M. Shedlock†¶, R. Ewan Fordyce**, Masami Hasegawa¶, and Norihiro Okada†,†† †Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuta-cho, Yokohama, Kanagawa 226-8501, Japan; ‡Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; §NOAA, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, La Jolla, CA 92037; ¶Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Tokyo 106-8569, Japan; ʈInstitute of Hydrobiology, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, Peoples Republic of China; and **Department of Geology, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand Communicated by James W. Valentine, University of California, Berkeley, CA, March 22, 2001 (received for review November 30, 2000) SINE (short interspersed element) insertion analysis elucidates higher group, the Platanistoidea (15). However, the appropri- contentious aspects in the phylogeny of toothed whales and ateness of this grouping has been doubted long by both mor- dolphins (Odontoceti), especially river dolphins. Here, we charac- phologists and molecular phylogeneticists (refs. 4, 6, 12, 13, 16, terize 25 informative SINEs inserted into unique genomic loci 17, 18, and 19; Fig. 1), and the debate is ongoing. Uncertainty during evolution of odontocetes to construct a cladogram, and about the phylogeny of river dolphins reflects not only high determine a total of 2.8 kb per taxon of the flanking sequences of skeletal disparity among living species, but also a fragmentary these SINE loci to estimate divergence times among lineages.
    [Show full text]
  • Contaminants and Biomarker Assays in Beluga Whales from the Eastern Chukchi Sea
    CONTAMINANTS AND BIOMARKER ASSAYS IN BELUGA WHALES FROM THE EASTERN CHUKCHI SEA NORTH SLOPE BOROUGH DEPARTMENT OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT PROGRESS REPORT, CONTRACT 2013-017 Submitted to: Dr. Robert Suydam North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management Barrow, Alaska 99723 (907) 852-0350 Submitted by: Mote Marine Laboratory Directorate of Marine Biology & Conservation 1600 Ken Thompson Parkway Sarasota, FL 34236 (941) 388-4441 (941) 388-4223 FAX Dr. Dana L. Wetzel and Dr. John E. Reynolds Mote Marine Laboratory, 1600 Ken Thompson Pkwy, Sarasota, FL 34236 2 March 2015 Mote Marine Laboratory Technical Report Number 1880 PROGRESS REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE NORTH SLOPE BOROUGH, DEPARTMENT OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT PROJECT TITLE: Contaminants and Biomarker Assays in Beluga Whales from the Eastern Chukchi Sea CONTRACT NUMBER: 2013-017 DATE: 2 March 2015 SUBMITTED TO: Dr. Robert Suydam SUBMITTED BY: Dr. Dana Wetzel and Dr. John Reynolds Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, Florida PROJECT END DATE: The anticipated end date is December 2015. At that time all funds will be spent and all analyses will be completed and interpreted. A final report will be submitted by 1 January 2016. Introduction: The project has three primary components, namely 1) age determination, 2) analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other classes of organic contaminants, and (3) assessment of selected biomarkers of effects of stressors. The results achieved to date will be described separately in this report. Samples (eye lens, serum, blubber, and liver) were acquired by a team of scientists led by Dr. Robert Suydam (North Slope Borough, Department of Wildlife Management; NSB) during the 2012 subsistence harvest of beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) by the community of Point Lay, Alaska.
    [Show full text]
  • Whales on Trees!
    Whales on Trees! How Many Times Did Mammals Return to the Sea? David Form Nashoba Regional High School Cetaceans Pinnipeds Sirenians Evolution of the Whales Mesonychids: Wolf - Related or Wolf-Like? Whales on Trees! Using DNA Evidence to Unravel the Story of the Evolution of the Whales There are three groups of mammals that live in the oceans; the whales and dolphins (the cetaceans), the seals and sea lions (the pinnipeds) and the manatees and dugongs (the sirenians). We can use DNA evidence to determine if the mammals returned to the sea only once or sea-dwelling mammals evolved on several occasions. If the first case is true, then the cetaceans, pinnipeds and sirenians will be more closely related to each other than to any land-dwelling mammals. On the other hand, if each of these groups are more closely related to different land-dwelling mammals, this would indicate that the ability to live in the water evolved several times in the mammals. The fossil evidence tells us that whales evolved from land dwelling mammals, known as mesonychids. These carnivorous animals have a wolf-like appearance. The fossil record shows a progression from mesonychids to the otter-like Pakicetus, to a walking whale, Amubulocetus, to progressively more whale-like creatures. All of these animals have certain unique bones in common, morphological evidence that they are related. So, does this tell us that whales are related to wolves, or were the mesonychids and Pakicetus, just wolf-like in appearance; an example of convergent evolution? We will use DNA evidence to help us to answer these evolutionary questions.
    [Show full text]