Sentences with word «mysticetes»

«This find by our Peruvian colleague Mario Urbina fills a major gap in the history of the group, and it provides clues about the ecology of early mysticetes,» says paleontologist and study co-author Olivier Lambert of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.

The teeth of the newly discovered species of mysticete, called Coronodon havensteini, lend support to the latter view.

But at some point during whale history, the ancestors of modern mysticetes replaced teeth with baleen, fibrous plates that filter out small bits of food from seawater like a giant sieve.

«The skull of this species indicates that it split off very early in mysticete whale evolution, and our analyses confirm that evolutionary position,» Geisler says.

And scientists still don't know what series of changes in the ocean environment and in mysticetes» bodies led to the transformation.

It was larger than other toothed mysticetes, with a skull nearly one meter long.

The fossil is the oldest known mysticete, a group that includes baleen whales, such as humpbacks, researchers report in the May 22 Current...

Earliest mysticete from the late Eocene of Peru sheds new light on the origin of baleen whales.

«For example, this early mysticete retains teeth, and from what we observed of its skull, we think that it displays an early specialization for suction feeding and maybe for bottom feeding.»

«It perfectly matches what we would have expected as an intermediary step between ancestral basilosaurids and more derived mysticetes, «says Lambert.

Thus, when the filter - feeding mysticetes (which includes the blue whale) began scooping krill from the water, they essentially excluded other lineages from this niche.

(Other early mysticetes show similar wear, also suggesting suction - feeding tendencies.)

Scientists have made predictions about what the first mysticetes might have looked like, but until now, haven't had much fossil evidence to back up those ideas, says Nicholas Pyenson, a paleobiologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. «Here, we have something we've been waiting for: a really old baleen whale ancestor.»

Mysticetes didn't become true filter feeders until millions of years later, he says.

But an astounding fossil discovery is offering scientists a glimpse into the distant, ferocious past of today's mild - mannered mysticetes.

SWFSC scientists are also using fisheries acoustic technologies to measure the distribution and density of prey being exploited by foraging mysticete whales involved in behavioral studies.

Notable features that distinguish the gray whale from other mysticetes include its baleen that is variously described as cream, off - white, or blond in color and is unusually short.

Its snout was flattened, just like in modern mysticetes.

However, the newly described whale has teeth, so the paleontologists dubbed it Mystacodon, meaning «toothed mysticete.»

The fossil is the oldest known mysticete, a group that includes baleen whales, such as humpbacks, researchers report in the May 22 Current Biology.

One example is the Western Atlantic Passive Acoustics analysis of mysticetes, or baleen whales, (WAPAW).

Lambert and his colleagues will be looking for more ancient whales to further flesh out the story of early mysticetes.

Many basilosaurids were probably active hunters, similar to modern orcas, with mouths that were suited for biting and attacking, but Mystacodon has a mouth more suited for sucking in smaller animals, leading the researchers to conclude that Mystacodon most likely represents an intermediate step between raptorial and filter feeding and between the ancient basilosaurids and modern mysticetes.

Though Mystacodon's hind limbs were already tiny and well down the path toward being vestigial and useless, their articulation with the pelvis suggests that mysticetes and modern toothed whales may have lost this feature independently.

The specimen, which researchers unearthed in the Pisco Basin in southern Peru, is the oldest known member of the mysticete group, which includes the blue whale, the humpback whale, and the right whale.

«Among marine mammals, when a slow - swimming animal is living close to the sea floor, generally the bone is much more compact, and this is something we want to test with these early mysticetes.»

Mystacodon bolsters that argument by displaying features of both basilosaurids and mysticetes.

Modern mysticetes have keratin fibers — called baleen — in place of teeth that allow them to trap and feed on tiny marine animals such as shrimp.

Based on the age of nearby rocks, the scientists estimate that the Arktocara fossil comes from the late Oligocene epoch, around the time ancient whales diversified into two groups — baleen whales (mysticetes) and toothed whales (odontocetes).

Like other early mysticetes, this one still had teeth — its name means «toothed mysticete.»

In September 2014, the same international team of researchers, guided by Giovanni Bianucci from Pisa University (Italy), found a partial skeleton of a mysticete whale in a rock boulder.

The baleen whales (Mysticetes) filter their food from the water with big baleen plates.

The baleen whales (or mysticetes) are the other group of cetaceans.