the whale and evolution help?

A whale is a mammal.

its blow hole and mouth aren't connected. (so when it eats tones of krill at a time it wont drown)

evolution teaches that whales where land mammals that decided to go back into the ocean.

Mammals mouths and noses are connected.

so when the whale decided to go into the ocean it would have drowned?

so how did evolution make the whales nose and mouth disconnect?

there cant be partial disconnection

I'm no biologist. and don't claim to know what i'm talking about. so some enlightenment would be awesome.

reply to post by the illuminator


Well, I don't know for sure that anyone has officially answered this, but on the surface of it, the most obvious path for the evolutionary process to take would be to seperate the airway and the mouth at the epiglottis. In most modern mammals, the epiglottis allows for the trachea to be used for food intake as well as oxygen intact by closing off the lungs when we swallow. This could be where the seperation evolved from. Of course it is possible that the merger of the esophagus and the trachea happened AFTER the whales returned to the water.. I'm not sure anyone has an exact timeline on that, since it would not really be in the fossil record.

[edit on 9-13-2009 by rogerstigers]

duplicated post.

[edit on 9-13-2009 by rogerstigers]

yea but wouldn't the whale die during the time evolution was trying to separate these things?

reply to post by the illuminator


Upon further reflection, the epiglotis does appear to have mutated.

yea but wouldn't the whale die during the time evolution was trying to separate these things?

The ancestors of the whales and dolphins didn't just dive into the water one day and never look back. They were amphibious for a while. In addition, I can eat underwater without drowning. The whales, etc. are much better, but there may well have been a long period where they were mearly adequate enough to survive.

i dont know. for some reason im not convinced evolution proves whales exist.......why would they just decide to live in the water???

reply to post by the illuminator


That, my friend is a good question. The first thing that comes to mind is food scarcity on dry land and/or geographical isolation (one of the biggest contemporary causes of speciation).

I am always willing to give the benefit of the doubt on certain ideas, but I am never one to discount the ingenuity of mother nature.

Birds are another thing.......birds bones are nothing like reptile bones. there hollow and even act as a type of lung to hold air in! and feathers dont look like they used to be scales. they hold no ressemlence

Well To answer your question from an evolutionary stand point look to other aquatic mammals like Manatees and Hippos. The longer these guys stay in the water the more they change. What is happening is that their noses are going UP.

Logical right?

The manatee and hippo both have Large nostrols that are far above their mouths compared to other creatures like Otters.

Seals are keeping their nose low but they have turned their hands into fins...Like manatees but not like hippos.

So if you were looking for a missing link I would say look to manatee....maybe sealacamps..

Now when it comes to intelligence I think whales are not the smartest creatures. Porpoises on the other hand are sentient. They pass the self awareness mirror test and seem to have a complicated whistle click language.

For my two tax dollars I would spend more time trying to get to know the other sentient life forms here on earth before I went looking for them in space. Especially when their are over 40 types of porpoises.

reply to post by the illuminator


There's just no answer. The theory of evolution can't explain everything. Then again neither does religion. I always ask myself why ask questions when we know we won't get the answer. But then again, why ask that question?

I believe that maybe it was an amphibian, before it decided to just go back in the ocean. Why? Who knows. Maybe the fact that they eat small fish/krill can explain something in their evolution.

reply to post by the illuminator


Well, there have been reptiles, archeopteryx and raptors specifically, that have been found surrounded by feather impressions. I have often wondered if feathers came about from a differant process than scales, though. Hair is not a byproduct of our skin, for instance.

As for the bones, well, bones change.. humans have bone disorders that make them incompatible with our current culture and lifestyle, but in a differant envronment, etc., a bone disorder might be the one thing that helps a particular bloodline to survive.

For the record, I actually am not unfriendly to the idea that there was some sort of intelligent intervention in the evolutionary process on this planet. I am just as willing to accept that certain traits survive better than others, too.

id agree with that space comment. there are millions of species on earth yet to be discovered id bet!

You hear of the saying "When does a bad wing become a good leg?" answer
Never.

Did you know that whales are related to hippos?

Unlikely Cousins: Whales and Hippos.

Originally posted by peaceonearth
You hear of the saying "When does a bad wing become a good leg?" answer
Never.

Yeah, thank you for that thought proviking and insightful contribution to the converstion.

Originally posted by the illuminator

Mammals mouths and noses are connected.

so when the whale decided to go into the ocean it would have drowned?

so how did evolution make the whales nose and mouth disconnect?

there cant be partial disconnection

Over a rather difficult to caculate span of time, evolution happens. What this means is there were presumably thousands of species and classes of animals that existed that where sub sects and part of mammalia which spawned the modern whale as we know it today.

Over MILLIONS of years of whales trying to eat and then subsequently drowning because they swallowed too much water while feeding, their species presumably evolved to a point where there where two different chambers, on for air, one for food.

Wiki has a article about it: en.wikipedia.org...
Worth a look through anyway.

I am bumping this thread. Came across it for another search. If I think I get what you mean...

Whales still breath air. Are you trying to figure out how they made the change from land to sea? They can hold their breath for very long periods of time, but still surface for air. But they adapted to go from drinking fresh water to salt. Because mammals usually can't drink sea water without getting sick.

There is a show on nat geo called Morph. It shows the progress evolutionary steps species took. It is fascinating. And whales were the most fascinating of all.
The whales started off as this funky looking creature like a cross between a pig and a rat the size of a dog.

They are one of evolution's most amazing creatures, with they way they have adapted and the abilities they obtained. Whales can control blood flow to their hearts and brains.

The blowhole IS the nose. And they are connected, but a whale can voluntary shut the blowhole as needed. They squeeze it shut like an eyelid. Just like you can grip your nose closed when dunking in a pool.

[edit on 10-10-2009 by nixie_nox]