The journal Evolution: Education and Outreach has a great piece on the evolution of whales, complete with pictures. As the piece says, "cetacean origin is one of the best known examples of macroevolution documented in the fossil record."

The authors, leading researchers in the field, lay out the details with pictures of fossils, whale embryos, and even a four-limbed dolphin. Evolution: Education and Outreach is aimed in part at K-12 teachers, so this piece is not too technical. You're not going to find a better short intro to whale evolution.



Fig, 27, "From Land to Water: the Origin of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises" Thewissen, Cooper, George, and Bajpai."


Subscribe to Adaptive Complexity: