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Whales is whales (mander.xyz)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] angrystego 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Wait, seals are sea doggos, right? Whales are sea cows.

[–] Wizard_Pope 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But manatees are sea cows

[–] angrystego 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They are called sea cows, but they're really sea elephants? I hope I'm not terribly wrong.

[–] Wizard_Pope 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Why elephants? I mean whales are not cows just by looking at what they eat. In that way manatees eating mostly sea plants are closer to being cows. Are they not?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I think it's a joke about manatees having evolved from the same land-based ancestor as elephants, making them pretty literally "sea elephants".

[–] Wizard_Pope 3 points 10 months ago

Interesting. Just like the actual closest living relative to the elephant looks like a malnourished beaver

[–] angrystego 3 points 10 months ago

Yes, I was referring to the evolutionary aspects, not the ecological ones :)

[–] AngryCommieKender 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Cetaceans evolved from a wolf like creature, not a bovine like one.

[–] angrystego 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Did they? Wiki tells me "that cetaceans are phylogenetically closely related with the even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla)". So a horse is closer than a cow, but a cow is much closer than a dog. By the way, I like the fact that we're both angry :)

[–] AngryCommieKender 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It depends on what you want to call pakicetus, I think it looks kinda dog like.

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/what-are-evograms/the-evolution-of-whales/

The DNA may tell an entirely different story.

[–] angrystego 2 points 10 months ago

Pakicetus looks really cute in this reconstruction! I've always seen the species pictured looking as a kind of a big rat. This is so much better.