The evolution of whales from land to sea

Enlarge / Whales and their kin evolved from land-dwelling mammals, a transition that entailed major physiological and morphological changes—which geneticists have begun to parse.Hayes Baxley/National Geographic for Disney+

Around 400 million years ago, the ancestor of all four-limbed creatures took its first steps onto dry land. Fast-forward about 350 million years, and a descendant of these early landlubbers did an about-face: It waded back into the water. With time, the back-to-the sea creatures would give rise to animals vastly different from their land-trotting kin: They became the magnificent whales, dolphins, and porpoises that glide through the oceans today.

Going back

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