Dolphins and orcas have passed the evolutionary point of no return to live on land again

[admin]

Scientists have discovered that once a mammal has become fully aquatic, it passes a threshold that makes a return to terrestrial landscapes almost impossible.

Dolphins and orcas have passed the evolutionary point of no return to live on land again : Read more

 

[Karmatiger]

"Dolphins and orcas..."

Orcas are dolphins.

 

[Polyspecific]

I'm glad that the idiots are researching something that will generate a large and positive change in the world. This is such useful information.

 

[WhistlingWishes]

Dolphins and toothed whales are not normal animals, as they are smarter than us (though less metacognatively dispossessed). If they actually wanted to go back to land, I suspect their cooperative society and immense intellects would allow them to find a way in fewer generations than might be imagined. Baleen whales are fully content as they are, so I suspect they couldn't imagine better place in this world. But the grinning, toothed cetaceans, I would never put anything past them.

 

[WhistlingWishes]

"Dolphins and orcas..."

Orcas are dolphins.

The same branch as other toothed cetaceans, yes. But the bottle nosed whale is far more closely related to dolphins than orca, but is classed as a whale, not as a porpoise or dolphin, because of it's closer genetics to the bigger group. I am given to understand orcas were much bigger once upon a time and hunted bigger animals until other whales put them in their place. Eventually survival shrank them to the scale of their prey: porpoises, dolphins, and pinnipeds.

 

[LesleyGumGrass]

Separate thing- Do we know where humans are with the point of no return for returning to nature? Things like nut intolerance are kind of a big deal and becoming more common all the time. And in general are our bodies too accustomed to running on carbohydrates for us to successfully live in the wild without such a constant source of carbs? Stress levels alone* could tear some of us apart.

 

[TB5]

Good! I imagine running into an orca in the woods would be scary as all hell.