Walking Whales: Evolution of the World’s Brainiest Mammals

What would you imagine once looked like a dog, was related to a hippo, and would evolve into a whale a few million years later?

In this webinar, Drs. Lori Marino and Mark Uhen discuss their fascinating discoveries about the ancestral animals known to scientists as archeocetes (“ancient whales”).

As they evolved from land-based animals to ocean-going, their teeth grew smaller and their brains grew larger. And by about 15 million years ago, they were looking very much like the whales, dolphins and porpoises we see today.

Dr. Uhen’s research focuses on the origin and evolution of cetaceans. And he’s an expert in the fascinating world of cetacean paleobiology (the study of cetacean fossils). Dr. Marino is the world’s foremost expert on the brains of whales and dolphins. And she has worked with Dr. Uhen on several studies of cetacean brain evolution.

There’s growing interest all over the world in the cognitive abilities of whales and dolphins: their intelligence, their use of echolocation, their range of emotions and their highly complex social lives. It’s all part of their evolutionary story.

And at the sanctuary that the Whale Sanctuary Project is establishing in Port Hilford Bay for orcas and beluga whales being retired from entertainment parks, we plan (and, of course, without intruding on their lives) to gather information that can help us better understand their abilities and the skills they use in building relationships. There’s much we can learn from them.

For more information about the Whale Sanctuary Project, go to https://whalesanctuary.org

Your donations to the Whale Sanctuary Project are greatly appreciated. https://whalesanctuary.org/donate