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The Picard Maneuver @lemmy.world

6mo ago

Evolutionary fence-sitters

Non-Political Memes @lemmy.ml

hydration9806 @lemmy.ml

6mo ago

Evolutionary fence-sitters

16 comments

I seem to recall that marine mammals are the result of water creatures migrating on to the land, evolving for a while, then some of them going back to the water.
- “Yo. Fuck this air, guys. I’m going back.”
  
  You wouldn't believe
  https://www.livescience.com/28075-how-whales-ancestors-left-land.html
- And since all land vertebrates are descendents of fish, and you can't evolve out of a clade, whales actually are fish.
  
  Hell yeah! Fuck paraphyletic groups.
  
  And so are all of us
DYK: Whales and dolphins have their nose on the back of their head.
- Dolphins also apparently have a prehensile dick.
  
  One of the few things they have in common with elephants
- Sorta. They have one nostril on the back of their head, and the other is inside the skull so that they can make sounds.
Sperm whale lungs collapse during their dive
- Wouldn’t that be true of any whale’s lungs?
  Humans’ lungs get smaller when they dive.
  Or do you mean they get flat as a pancake?
  
  Looks like you're right it's not just the sperm whale and the ribcage is flexible in whales so it can collapse
  They dive crazy deep, third deepest in the world so I'm not sure if other whales' lungs can outright collapse rather than just flex
Convergent evolution is pretty cool.

16 comments