Tagévolution
Are blue whales really blue?
That might sound like a funny question! After all, isn’t the blue colour of Balaenoptera musculus, in addition to its…
Allocare in Belugas: Still a Mysterious Behaviour
Perched atop a tower in the middle of Baie Sainte-Marguerite, Jaclyn Aubin peered down on belugas for two summers (2017…
Do Whales Have Hair?
All mammals have hair. At first glance, this characteristic seems completely incompatible with the image we have of whales, animals…
Whale Fossils Reveal Their Secrets
In 2020, a fossil dating from the Oligocene was studied in South Carolina by a US research team. The fossil…
Voluntarily Lowering One’s Heart Rate to Dive Safely
Because they live in water and must constantly dive to forage or to move, cetaceans have developed a great number…
Why is the blue whale so big?
It is bigger than the largest dinosaur. And it weighs roughly 25 times more than the largest living land animal,…
Fossil of four-legged, amphibious whale discovered in Peru
The terrestrial ancestors of whales first entered the water some 50 million years ago in the region around India and…
Do Whales Have Baby Teeth?
Humans have two generations of teeth: deciduous teeth (from the Latin “to fall”) – also called “baby teeth” – and…
An ancient whale with neither teeth or baleen
Museum collections are full of fossils that haven’t been carefully examined in years. However, by taking a closer look at…
Ancient whales with teeth like lions
Ancient whales had extremely sharp teeth, similar to those of land-based predators such as lions and dingoes, recently discovered researchers…
Baby on mom’s left or right?
Do you tend to carry your baby on your left? And does your child tend to position themselves so that…
How did baleen appear?
A recently discovered whale fossil has proven to be an important piece of the puzzle with regard to whale evolution.…
If Belugas and Narwhals Cohabit the Arctic, is it Possible That These Whales Once Swam Side by Side in The Champlain Sea?
Being that they frequent the same territory, narwhals do occasionally come into contact with belugas in the Arctic, without necessarily…
How Far Back Does the Presence of Belugas in the St. Lawrence Go?
Some of the first records of belugas in the St. Lawrence River can be found in Jacques Cartier's travel logs…
Beaked Whale Ancestors Hunted Mostly Near the Surface
The discovery of a fossil of a beaked whale (Messapicetus gragarius) dating back 9 million years reveals that this animal…
Which Cetacean Species are Extinct?
At the present time, there are very few extinct whales, although some – described later in this article – have…