NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine Animated image of doctoral and medicinal related objects with the words College of Osteopathic Medicine inside it.

Cetacean Science Explained

Cetacean science is exciting, but it can be difficult to understand the technical language of original scientific publications.

Click on the articles below for easy-to-read, student written summaries of recently published scientific papers on cetacean evolution.

Deméré, T.A., McGowen, M.R., Berta, A., Gatesy. J. 2008. Morphological and molecular evidence for a stepwise evolutionary transition from teeth to baleen in mysticete whales. Systematic Biology 57:15–37

Fitzgerald, E.M.G. 2006. A bizarre new toothed mysticete (Cetacea) from Australia and the early evolution of baleen whales. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 273:2955-2963

Gingerich, P.D., ul-Haq, M., von Koenigswald, W., Sanders, W.J., Smith, B.H., Zalmout, I.S. 2009. New protocetid whale from the middle Eocene of Pakistan: birth on land, precocial development, and sexual dimorphism. PLoS ONE one 4: e4366. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004366. Summary by J. Chang or Summary by R. Boessenecker.

Manger, P.R. 2006. An examination of cetacean brain structure with a novel hypothesis correlating thermogenesis to the evolution of a big brain. Biological Review 81: 293-338.

Marino, L., Butti, C., Connor, R.C., Fordyce, R.E., Herman, L.M., Hof, P.R., Lefebvre, L., Lussaeu, D., McCowan, B., Nimchinsky, E.A., Pack, A.A., Reidenberg, J.S., Reiss, D., Rendell, L., Uhen, M.D., Van der Gucht, E., Whitehead, H. 2008. A claim in search of evidence: reply to Manger's thermogenesis hypothesis of cetacean brain structure. Biological Review: 1-23.

Muizon, C. de,  Domning, D.P., Ketten, D.R. 2002. Odobenocetops peruvianus, the walrus-convergent delphinoid (Mammalia: Cetacea) from the early Pliocene of Peru. In Cenozoic mammals of land and sea, tributes to the career of Clayton E. Ray. Edited by Emry, R. E. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 93:185-222.