Whales Move Essay

The ancestors of the whales transitioned from being land bearing animals to becoming animals that live in the ocean. While the original ancestor of whales lived on land as it evolved it was able to start to enter the water until it struggled more to get on land than to get in water until the whale’s ancestors began to live exclusively underwater.

Why didn’t they just stay on the land like just about every other mammal in the world. Whale’s ancestor the Indohyus resembled that of a wolf or even deer. Over time, it started swimming in the water more, hunting for food in the water more, and traveled in the water more. Through the process of natural selection, the phenotype of the Indohyus slowly changed over time to accommodate for these changes. It accommodated the changes by slowly forming aquatic features that allowed it to move faster and more efficiently in the water, as well as hunt better in the water. The whale is one of the few carnivorous sea creatures, and it is believed to be so because of it’s early ancestors hunting on land live other mammals such as wolves. This would explain the strange diet of whales compared to other sea creatures like fish and algae. Being one of the largest animals in the entire ocean, whales could easily devour any meal they wanted, though more recently, the diet of the whale has minimized to smaller animals like krill but in large quantities. Along with its outward appearance, its behavior has changed dramatically. Unlike its ancestors who hunt on land or close to land, whales hunt deep into the sea a very low depths, since they are capable of doing so with their fully developed lungs, another trait that suggests evidence towards it having land mammal

In captivity they have very little space and cannot behave naturally. A concrete tank can never replace their ocean home. Killer whales are usually around 20 ft-30 ft long, basically the length of a school bus. They travel 100 miles a day in the wild. In captivity, they swim along the same walls about 1,400 times a day. Putting whales in a size of a bathtub is not the best idea for their health and entertainment.

Whales are large aquatic mammals. Like every other animal they did not start off like that. Whales came to be after millions of years of evolution. Every aspect of the current whale was decided by nature. The blowhole, dorsal fins, lack of teeth and tail fluke all came from years of other creatures such as the Mesonychids and many other animals.

Whales in captivity suffer through a great amount of emotional abuse . In captivity, Children can be separated from their mothers, and whales that are taken from the wild are separated from their families ,which can consist of up to 40 members (National Geographic). Whales are very family oriented and each pod of whales has their own dialect when communicating. Whales are social creatures and by depriving them of social activity and their families, they become depressed and

Whales resort to pacing around the tank in circles to emulate the fast strong feeling of a swim normally done in the wild in an attempt to keep their dorsal fin upright.

Once a family, always a family - unless of course a horrible group of human beings split them up. The bond is so strong that they travel great journeys as a family unit. According to a BBC article, a team tagged, and tracked, a pod of killer whales and found they regularly travel all the way from the Antarctic to Brazil then all the way back. To put this into numbers, on one of their journeys, they covered a distance of 5,075 miles without stopping: this can be compared to a non-stop journey from Edinburgh to Los Angeles or London to Beijing. A distance that is impossible to mimic in captivity. The reason for these epic journeys is for food. Killer whales have a varied diet and are one of the most powerful predators on earth. They hunt a mixture of sea birds, squid, sea turtles, sharks, rays, fish and marine mammals such as seals. What makes it so interesting is different ecotypes will eat different foods dependent on their native habitat and this is when we have to consider what captive whales are being fed. The common diet of dead frozen fish is not specific to every type killer whale. I am convinced that this is not a healthy diet for a whale and only makes captive life even worse as their wellbeing is in constant

While many people have experienced the majestic showcasing of trained orcas in public displays at recreational parks such as SeaWorld, few have heard of the tragic events that these killer whales go through while in captivity. It is ironic that such family oriented companies like SeaWorld, who pride themselves in giving families experiences that they will never forget, can just tear families of killer whales apart and abuse them while training them. And although these public displays of trained orcas seem extraordinary through the audience’s eyes, it is time that the untold stories of these whales and the true dangers of training whales comes out into light.

The study was first embarked in an attempt to assess what could be done to help the depleting population of the wester Pacific whale. However, it later turned up evidence that may imply that western Pacific whales may just be California gray whales with different swimming patterns.

Megan Bergman’s story “Yesterdays Whales” discusses a woman’s choice to have an abortion, which is a highly debated topic in today’s society. In 2015, 50% of the people in the US were said to be pro-life and 44% of people said to be pro-choice. Becoming pro-life means that you would believe a pregnant women must have the baby and that it would be wrong to abort it. Deciding to be pro-choice is not viewing someone negatively if they want to abort it. There are so many different opinions on the matter, which have changed throughout the years. Of course everyone has different opinions about it but whatever their decision is, they should be confident about it. People really should make decisions for themselves rather than letting others choose their fate. Just one decision could change your whole life in just one second. Although there is good and bad in choosing pro-life there can also be both in choosing pro-choice. Although there is controversy, Bergman does an excellent job portraying throughout her story that women should have a choice for their own bodies.

The earliest whales were land animals with long skulls and carnivorous teeth. Analysis of whale skulls showed major morphological changes, including changes to the skull size, shape, teeth, and nostrils. Fossil evidence shows that the trait of interest, the nostrils, can be found on fossils of the earliest whales, dating back to about 50 million years ago. Evolution occurred multiple times since then, each time resulting in the nostrils migrating further back on the skull. Eventually, the pair of nostrils positioned itself right on top of the head. These nostrils are the blowholes we see positioned on top of modern whales today. In addition, another momentous change in the nostrils occur when order Cetacea splits into Mysticetes and Odontocetes. Suborder Mysticetes

Whales were peeled by vessels, conserved by the cold, and packed in barrels. 1719 Greenland whaling operation spread into Davis Strait. Davis Strait whaling operation was in the power of the Dutch and German until 1780. The Britain had to leave and service their industrial revolution. From the beginning of the 1690s the British had hunted down whales (have been fishing) in the Bay of North America colonies,also in Rhode Island, Long Island, Cape Cod. These were new centers of activity for (whaling) fishing. Then, during 1712 the Nantucket vessel capture the first sperm whale,these became a brand new center.

Baleen whales are mammals, which means that they are warm-blooded and breathe air using their lungs. That sounds interesting considering that they live in ocean waters, but they have two blowholes at the top of their body that allows them to breathe when they reach the surface of the water.

The origin of modern day whales, a mystery that has puzzled paleontologists for years, may have just been solved with the discovery of an ankle bone. This discovery might sound simple and unimportant, but the bones of these ancient animals hold many unanswered questions and provide solid proof of origin and behavior. The relationship between whales and other animals has proven to be difficult because whales are warm-blooded, like humans, yet they live in the sea. The fact that they are warm-blooded suggests that they are related to some type of land animal. However, the questions of exactly which animal, and how whales evolved from land to water, have remained unanswered until now.