Special Art Post - Cetaceans and their potential for evolution.

Hello again. I have been thinking about whales and dolphins lately, Cetacea. so here are a bunch of my concepts about possible evolutionary scenarios of cetaceans.

 

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Firstly, if one or two species of dolphin or porpoise survived after the occupation by man, what would those be like?

We may see giant, killer-whale like species of dolphins with high intelligence, and ruthless hunting strategies for a wide variety of prey sizes.

We could see dolphins evolving to fill the deep-diving niche left open by the extinction of beaked-whales.

We may even see sapient Cetacea, or at least to a greater degree than in our era, with manipulative organs in the form of a mobile, Beluga-like set of lips.

Dolphins may become huge deep-divers resembling sperm-whales, feeding in large squid.

And porpoises may produce small, robust, seafloor-grubbing durophages that feed on shellfish.

Tusked cetaceans may evolve again, this time from small, dolphin-like animals.
 

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But what about those bizarre, far-out ideas for evolution in the distant, unknowable future, and what if Dolphins recolonized land?

And amphibious form, supported by its tail and flippers, would be a logical first step.

From there, a tripodal stance involving the tail, and an ungulate-like physique, might follow. Forms would regain hair, and lose their echolocating melons. Some may become formidable, Entelodont-like predators.

Other members of the same family may be sleek, fast-running predators with wounding, shark-like teeth.

If a baleen whale ever became small and amphibious enough to re-colonize the land, maybe it would become a pig-sized animal which gleans swarms of insects, social and otherwise, from the ground or low growth. Seasonally, it may switch to a more omnivorous diet when numbers of insects are lower.

Less likely, perhaps legless Odontocete predators will evolve, with a lower metabolism, that hunt from ambush using acute hearing and tactile senses.

 

Small, crawling omnivorous burrowers may evolve, with a face resembling a partway between a pig and a dolphin.

 

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What if the Cenozoic had gone a little differently, and the present day oceans were populated with cetaceans that were familiar, but different.

There may be giant, elongate species of dolphin with peaked dorsal fins.

Sperm whales may remain in their ancestral niche of shallow-water fish-eaters of various sizes.

River dolphins may become bottom-foragers, using their sensitive tactile snouts to find food buried in the mud.

Unusual sperm whales may evolve with strikingly different arrangements of teeth.

Perhaps predatory Mysticetes like Janjucetus would persist into the present day as dynamic visual hunters.

 

 

What if whales similar to beaked whales, evolved from forms of primitive Odontocete that had no echolocation, and relied on hunting in the deeps by sight instead? 

As with beaked whales, some forms may become very large and elongate.

Other non-echolocating Odontocetes may become tactile, whiskered bottom feeders in near-shore waters.

There would be tusked and non-tusked forms.

There may be kinds of Odontocene that do not match modern groups at all.

Forms intermediate between Narwhal and Beluga may persist into the present.

Or perhaps the Monodontid group would have diversity not seen in or timeline.

Perhaps even forms with differing arrangements of tusks than those we know.

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If the Palaeogene had gone differently, Archaeocetes and whippos may have taken on unusual forms not known in our fossil record, such as...

Large, shore-and-estuary-dwelling whippos that are equally able to swim, wade and run. 

Protocetids or Ambulocetids which place more emphasis on limb-based swimming, as opposed to tail-based.

Giant, walrus-like Makaracetus-relatives which posses distinct tusks, and a taste for mollusks. 

Maybe some of these would even approach a walrus in appearance. 

Mid-sized Protocetids that dredge muddy ocean-floors in search of marine invertebrates, using a mesh of peg-like teeth.

More limb-propelled Protocetids, perhaps with sexually dimorphic tusks.

Durophagous relatives of Ambulocetus, that feed on mollusks and crustaceans in near-shore waters.

Secondarily-terrestrial Ambulocetids, formidable pursuit hunters driven to reclaim land by being isolated on a set of islands.

Derived descendants of Makaracetus, that dredge mollusks from the seafloor with large tusks and a muscular upper lip.

Large wading Pakicetids, that stride out into rivers and lagoons in order to stalk fish.

 

Freshwater Remingtonocetids, which use their sensitive whiskered snout as a tactile organ to find aquatic invertebrates, much like a platypus.

Derived Remingtonocetids, which abandoned the standard limb configuration of most Archaeocetes, and became tail-based swimmers with steering hind-flippers.

More limb-propelled, sealion-like Archaeocetes, with powerful flipper like feet that enable them to swim swiftly and gracefully.

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I hope you enjoy these ideas, I was tempted to compile these eclectic

 drawings, some old, some brand new, because whale evolution and cetaceans in general is such a fascinating subject, much illuminated by the study of fossils and evolution.

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