Bubblecar said:

Michael V said:

Bubblecar said:

Early whales paddled like dogs.

Mr Car, do you have a reference for this?

I can see the image is from New Scientist. I think party_pants and I both need to read the article before we continue our discussion about the merits and evolution of proposed whale swimming mechanisms

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2216397-early-whales-swam-doggy-paddle-across-the-ocean-from-india-to-africa/

Thanks.

Transferred from chat.

Michael V said:

party_pants said:

Bubblecar said:

Early whales paddled like dogs.

Early fish swam like cats.

Say wha?

From chat.

party_pants said:

Michael V said:

party_pants said:

Early fish swam like cats.

Say wha?

I’m just speculating that if early whales swam like doggy paddle style, then early fish must have been rather slower and less agile than modern fish. Otherwise they’d starve and die out.

I think I have the conversation so far.

I’ll go read the article.

I wonder what the early whales ate.

From an evolutionary perspective, it must have been easier or more nutritious for them to gather food from the marine environment than from on land. Otherwise why do it if there is no benefit. And it must have been a benefit for a sustained period of time to allow time for evolutionary adaptations into modern whales.

So what did they eat? Modern whales tend to be filter feeders of small invertebrates or fairly small fish. Some eat large prey like squid, or sharks, seals and the like. There are not many that eat individual medium size fish that they hunt and chase and capture one at a time. maybe dolphins, but they tend to hunt in packs and use air bubbles to corral their prey first before doing lunge attacks.

So i wonder what they ate, and I don’t think the picture is accurate. If modern whales don’t hunt this way, I can’t see an ancient whale being any good at it either, especially since their swimming technique was well less adapted to the water environment than modern whales.

party_pants said:

I wonder what the early whales ate.

From an evolutionary perspective, it must have been easier or more nutritious for them to gather food from the marine environment than from on land. Otherwise why do it if there is no benefit. And it must have been a benefit for a sustained period of time to allow time for evolutionary adaptations into modern whales.

So what did they eat? Modern whales tend to be filter feeders of small invertebrates or fairly small fish. Some eat large prey like squid, or sharks, seals and the like. There are not many that eat individual medium size fish that they hunt and chase and capture one at a time. maybe dolphins, but they tend to hunt in packs and use air bubbles to corral their prey first before doing lunge attacks.

So i wonder what they ate, and I don’t think the picture is accurate. If modern whales don’t hunt this way, I can’t see an ancient whale being any good at it either, especially since their swimming technique was well less adapted to the water environment than modern whales.

Things were entirely different back then. In many ways we are clutching at straws still yet in attemting to unravel the mysteries that lie in rocks. I know that Icthyosaurs could swallow great gulps of the type of squid known as belemnites
and again spew them up in the way an owl does of their bones. I have actually dug one of these upchucks in a conglomerate of belemnites.

To quote Charles Darwin

In N. America a the black bear has been was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, the minute crustaceans swimming on the surface insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of minute crustaceans insects were constant, & there did not already exist in any the region better adapted competitors, I can see no difficulty in a race of Bears being rendered by natural selection more & more aquatic in habits & structure, with larger & larger mouth, till a monstrous a creature was produced as monstrous in size & structure as a whale. (though feeding on such minute prey so minute.)

Jing Joh said:

To quote Charles Darwin

In N. America a the black bear has been was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, the minute crustaceans swimming on the surface insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of minute crustaceans insects were constant, & there did not already exist in any the region better adapted competitors, I can see no difficulty in a race of Bears being rendered by natural selection more & more aquatic in habits & structure, with larger & larger mouth, till a monstrous a creature was produced as monstrous in size & structure as a whale. (though feeding on such minute prey so minute.)

OK. I can buy the idea of the mammals dog-paddling around with their long snouts and sharp teeth catching crabs

Darwin was actually pooh poohed for this idea in his time and walked it back a bit.

Jing Joh said:

Darwin was actually pooh poohed for this idea in his time and walked it back a bit.

you don’t say…?

I don’t, no.
Darwin.

party_pants said:

Jing Joh said:

Darwin was actually pooh poohed for this idea in his time and walked it back a bit.

you don’t say…?

party_pants said:

I wonder what the early whales ate.

From an evolutionary perspective, it must have been easier or more nutritious for them to gather food from the marine environment than from on land. Otherwise why do it if there is no benefit. And it must have been a benefit for a sustained period of time to allow time for evolutionary adaptations into modern whales.

So what did they eat? Modern whales tend to be filter feeders of small invertebrates or fairly small fish. Some eat large prey like squid, or sharks, seals and the like. There are not many that eat individual medium size fish that they hunt and chase and capture one at a time. maybe dolphins, but they tend to hunt in packs and use air bubbles to corral their prey first before doing lunge attacks.

So i wonder what they ate, and I don’t think the picture is accurate. If modern whales don’t hunt this way, I can’t see an ancient whale being any good at it either, especially since their swimming technique was well less adapted to the water environment than modern whales.

Teeth type indicate what animals eat. The large teeth of those primitive whales were adapted for hunting and holding large animals (not necessarily fish) of which we have similar animals still around today, namely the Crocodiles/Alligators that are ambush predators that generally hunt in shallow water. They even have hands and feet rather than fins also like the early whales. However, mammals are not good at having irregular meals like the crocs, so probably not as well adapted for that way of life, but being mammals they were likely smarter and adapted to other ways to get their food and their dentation would have gradually changed, as did their feet as they began to hunt more in deeper water.

PermeateFree said:

party_pants said:

I wonder what the early whales ate.

From an evolutionary perspective, it must have been easier or more nutritious for them to gather food from the marine environment than from on land. Otherwise why do it if there is no benefit. And it must have been a benefit for a sustained period of time to allow time for evolutionary adaptations into modern whales.

So what did they eat? Modern whales tend to be filter feeders of small invertebrates or fairly small fish. Some eat large prey like squid, or sharks, seals and the like. There are not many that eat individual medium size fish that they hunt and chase and capture one at a time. maybe dolphins, but they tend to hunt in packs and use air bubbles to corral their prey first before doing lunge attacks.

So i wonder what they ate, and I don’t think the picture is accurate. If modern whales don’t hunt this way, I can’t see an ancient whale being any good at it either, especially since their swimming technique was well less adapted to the water environment than modern whales.

Teeth type indicate what animals eat. The large teeth of those primitive whales were adapted for hunting and holding large animals (not necessarily fish) of which we have similar animals still around today, namely the Crocodiles/Alligators that are ambush predators that generally hunt in shallow water. They even have hands and feet rather than fins also like the early whales. However, mammals are not good at having irregular meals like the crocs, so probably not as well adapted for that way of life, but being mammals they were likely smarter and adapted to other ways to get their food and their dentation would have gradually changed, as did their feet as they began to hunt more in deeper water.

Yep. I can buy that too.

party_pants said:

PermeateFree said:

party_pants said:

I wonder what the early whales ate.

From an evolutionary perspective, it must have been easier or more nutritious for them to gather food from the marine environment than from on land. Otherwise why do it if there is no benefit. And it must have been a benefit for a sustained period of time to allow time for evolutionary adaptations into modern whales.

So what did they eat? Modern whales tend to be filter feeders of small invertebrates or fairly small fish. Some eat large prey like squid, or sharks, seals and the like. There are not many that eat individual medium size fish that they hunt and chase and capture one at a time. maybe dolphins, but they tend to hunt in packs and use air bubbles to corral their prey first before doing lunge attacks.

So i wonder what they ate, and I don’t think the picture is accurate. If modern whales don’t hunt this way, I can’t see an ancient whale being any good at it either, especially since their swimming technique was well less adapted to the water environment than modern whales.

Teeth type indicate what animals eat. The large teeth of those primitive whales were adapted for hunting and holding large animals (not necessarily fish) of which we have similar animals still around today, namely the Crocodiles/Alligators that are ambush predators that generally hunt in shallow water. They even have hands and feet rather than fins also like the early whales. However, mammals are not good at having irregular meals like the crocs, so probably not as well adapted for that way of life, but being mammals they were likely smarter and adapted to other ways to get their food and their dentation would have gradually changed, as did their feet as they began to hunt more in deeper water.

Yep. I can buy that too.

It is a biggie.

Let’s be clear. I don’t buy the idea that early whales ~ 40 million years ago entered the ocean and started eating fish.

Fish evolved lateral lines around 400 million years ago. Organs which let them sense what is going on in the water around them even if they can’t see it with their eyes. A fair bit more perceptive and wide ranging an organ than the eye.