Rise of the titans: baleen whales became giants earlier than thought.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Bianucci G
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6548731 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Rise of the titans: baleen whales became giants earlier than thought.
Bianucci Giovanni G Marx Felix G FG Collareta Alberto A Di Stefano Agata A Landini Walter W Morigi Caterina C Varola Angelo A
Biology letters 20190501 5
Baleen whales (Mysticeti) are major ecosystem engineers, thanks to their enormous size and bulk filter feeding strategy. Their signature gigantism is thought to be a relatively recent phenomenon, resulting from a Plio-Pleistocene mode shift in their body size evolution. Here, we report the largest whale fossil ever described: an Early Pleistocene (1.5-1.25 Ma) blue whale from Italy with an estimated body length of up to 26 m. Macroevolutionary modelling taking into account this specimen, as well ...[more]
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