#Genus: Balaenoptera

[haveyouseenthisanimal-irl]

[inatungulates]

Antarctic killer whale Orcinus orca, attacking

Antarctic minke whale "Balaenoptera" bonaerensis

Observed by jands, CC BY-NC

Cosmopolitan hunters whose predatory deftness has enabled them to exploit many types of prey in many types of environments, killer whales Orcinus orca have diversified into a range of forms all over the world. These different ecotypes vary not only in prey preference, but also in social behavior, appearance, and genetic heritage -- while, at present, there is still only a single species of killer whale formally recognized, in reality the genus Orcinus surely consists of multiple species and multiple subspecies.

In the waters of the Antarctic, multiple types of killer whales can be found. The "Type A" Antarctic killer whale is a very large form with a "classic" coloration of bold black-and-white, a moderately-sized eye patch, a saddle patch, and no obvious dorsal cape -- similar to the well-known coastal killer whales of the North Atlantic and American West Coast. These Antarctic killers are mammal hunters, and the most abundant rorqual of the Southern Ocean, the Antarctic minke "Balaenoptera" bonaerensis, appears to be their favorite prey.

[tnc-n3cl]

Zora Biology Headcanons

I've been meaning to do this for a while and here it is! In my fanfic, The Realm Walker, the Zora exist as a collection of closely related species, much like the Rito. These different species are denoted by the term Tribe. Like with my Rito Tribes, most Zora Tribes names come from taxonomy of various fish. Here I'll be talking about Zora Tribes and why Zora rulers get so damn big. Keep in mind that I'll be using screenshots from TotK which may contain spoilers. So if you don't want to see the spoilers, stop reading. [Yes I know it's been over a year since it came out, but I know there's some people out there who haven't finished it yet.]

King Dorephan, an example of the Balae (Ba-lay) Tribe. Notable for being rather sizable among the Zora, the Balae Tribe can be distinguished by the horizontal lines running across their body.

I didn't want to include non-fish, but it's clear just by looking at him that Dorephan is based on a baleen whale of some kind (and the Creating a Champion book confirms this) Balae is derived from Balaenoptera, the genus containing Blue Whales (cause Dorephan is blue and so damn big).

Sidon, a member of the Spyra Tribe. (Yes I know, Yona's in the picture, I'm getting to her, hold your horses.) Members of this tribe can be distinguished by the hammerhead protrusion on their forehead. All Zora possess the ability to sense the bioelectric fields of living creatures, and the Spyra Tribe possesses an enhanced version of this sense. Spyra is derived from Sphyrna, the genus of 8 out of 9 living hammerhead shark species.

Fronk and Mei, silly goobers these two. Mei disappearing for five days and Fronk not telling anyone. Their poor kids... (Like the reverse of Kass flying all over Hyrule while Amali's home alone with the Rainbow Fledglings. Nintendo what did you do to Kass?! Where is he?!?!)

... I'm okay now... Anywho, these two are members of the Zo Tribe.

[According to my fic, The Amnesiac Hero's Quest, it's five days between Mei running off the day before Link arrives in the Domain and when Fronk finally asks Link to go look for her. Gruve was stuck on top of the Lanayru Tower for a week!]

Here have a few more members of the Zo Tribe, one of the elder Zora and a couple guards. Most examples of Zora are of the Zo Tribe, like the Orni Tribe being most of the Rito we see in the game. Zo is just shortened Zora, unfortunately there's not a cool alternate name for the Zora unlike the Rito (Orni being one of the localizations of Rito).

Okay NOW I'll talk about Yona (and that old geezer Muzu). They're both members of the Mobu Tribe, notable for their wide heads and ray-like features. Some like Yona have horns, others don't (like Muzu). Mobu comes from Mobula, the genus containing Manta Rays.

Look at Muzu calling Harth, "Master Harth", he's gotten nice after all these years.

I love Yona, so here's some more pictures of her!

And her two attendants. Notice anything different about them? You may recall from the game that they're from outside the Domain... You may also know about the TotK Master Works revealing that Yona started off as a swordswoman...

A sneak peek of her sword that I'm working on based on said concept art. We don't have much to go on other than the handle, and I need to refine a few details, but when she shows up in my fic Yona will be kicking ass and taking names.

You can note that their jewelry has gold and purple instead of silver and blue like the Domain dwellers. Previously I've made mention of a metal used for Zora arms called Silvite, so the Other Domain likely uses... Goldite? No that's no good. Some other name, we'll see when I finish the sword.

Okay back to Zora biology... There's two more tribes that I don't have photo refs of cause they're mostly made up (maybe). The Pime Tribe and the Goga Tribe. Pime comes from Pimelodidae, a taxonomic family of catfishes known as long-whiskered catfishes. Goga Tribe comes from Gogangra, a genus of Asian catfishes. The Pime Tribe at least is what is commonly known as the River Zora. I'll ah... get into that whole thing later...

(I have plans for a catfish-esque Zora OC I'll introduce once I get into the Pre-TotK/TotK arc of my fic, originally envisioned as something of a bodyguard for Yona, but as it turns out she may not actually need a bodyguard...)

Now for the last thing we have to talk about how damn big Dorephan is...

You may or may not remember this part of the Zora Regional Phenomenon Quest. You have to fire a King's Scale through a symbol to do... something. Activate the waterfall that gets you to the Water Temple? I forgot...

Anyway you get these from Dorephan himself with the flavor text: "Zora kings bear this scale on their foreheads. It sparkles in different ways depending on the angle from which it's viewed. They were once used in ancient Zora ceremonies."

Why would Zora kings have different scales? Could there be a biological aspect to Zora leadership? Let's take a look: OoT's King Zora, Queen Rutela in Twilight Princess, Queen Oren in ALBW. Notice anything? They're all huge!

Well Queen Oren specifically gets larger after someone steals a smooth gem from her...

Now look at Sidon and Mipha in comparison to Dorephan. Now look at Prince Ralis from Twilight Princess in comparison to his mother. They're not huge, in fact Mipha's rather short for a Zora...

So what's going on here? Clownfish! Clownfish have a strict hierarchy, where only the dominate male and female reproduce. When the top female dies, one of the largest and most dominant males becomes female!

So... Zora rulers become larger once they take over and the previous ruler dies. Once Dorephan kicks the bucket, Sidon will get huge! (Prince Ralis is an interesting case since he's still young, maybe it took him until reaching maturity for the growth spurt to hit?)

One last thing, not really biology but culture... In my fic the Zora, expecially royalty, are polygamous. Mipha and Sidon are biologically half-siblings (different mothers) although the Zora make no such distinction. And in relation to the Tribes above and how I had hybridization rules for the Rito Tribes, I'll just say that Tribal appearance is determined by the mother's side. (So Sidon's mother was Spyra Tribe and Mipha's was Zo Tribe.)

[eievuimultimuse]

VERSE 004. BALAENOPTERA MUSCA.

Balaenoptera: 'winged whale' ; Musca: genus for flies, including the housefly (Musca domestica) ; additionally, a play-on words of 'Balaenoptera musculus,' a.k.a. the blue whale and also the largest known animal to have ever lived.

post-cure addendum.

➤ AU inspired by the ending of the Mut.ant May.hem junior novelization

➤ After Superfly fell in the ocean along with his machine, he just…vanished. Despite the spoken concerns about the effects of allowing a machine full of MUTAGEN sink into the ocean, it…seemingly sank with little fanfare. Superfly never resurfaced. For all intents and purposes, it seemed like it was over. They stopped his apocalyptic plan, and the world was saved. If anything else popped up, they’d be ready, but for now…THIS WAS IT.

➤ Of course, that wasn’t actually it. The TRANSFORMATION that Superfly underwent as a result of exposure to the ooze and other creatures still very much took place. Instead of resurfacing and attacking New York, a disoriented and dazed Superfly wound up retreating further into the ocean. When he did eventually snap back to reality ( and also comprehended just what was happening to him ), he'd already become a fusion of various other creatures. Recognizing the circumstances he was left with, he opted to take advantage, using both his newfound strength and size as well as his current M.I.A. ( or worse ) status to continue carrying out his plan. Although he could no longer cause an apocalypse as originally planned, he figured becoming the ULTIMATE MUTANT would be a decent back-up.

➤ This plan was, admittedly, a little...SHORT-SIGHTED, particularly to the mental effects that fusing with so many other creatures would have ( granted, he was already not the most sound of mind when he thought up the plan in the first place because of aforementioned effects ). In this state, Superfly experiences episodes of brain fog, where his ability to think, concentrate and even remember things are impaired. In the early stages of his transformation, this was no more than having a lack of mental clarity than usual, with the rare bout of confusion. Now at the size he is at, he regularly experiences an inability to focus and multiple episodes of memory lapses. It is not uncommon for him to pursue a line of thinking only to shortly forget it within minutes. ( Occasionally, he even forgets why he's even doing any of this or how he wound up here. ) Ultimately, while his personality has remained unchanged and, while lucid, he still has sharp wits, he is not as quick as he once was.

➤ Due to spending longer in the ocean ( and thus assimilated far more animals ), Superfly is larger than his canon kaiju form was. While difficult to really gauge, if his canon form was just shorter than an apartment building in New York ( minimum 115ft, but could even be taller than that ), then he is at least double that, if not pushing triple. Having the mutagen-filled machine attached to his back basically meant that he just...kept absorbing animals as he travelled — something that he couldn't really control. Thankfully, the mutagen eventually dissipated and ran out after some time, so he's pretty much capped out at the size he is.

➤ Word of his existence is slowly spreading, particularly among sea vessels. This is following a series of random boat capsizes and at least one incident of an entire cruiseship going missing. When initial reports of the cause being a 'SEA MONSTER' came in, it was dismissed as hysteria. A few mishaps later, however, even skeptics are none too sure if there isn't something malicious lurking in the depths. ( Though some of these incidents have occurred a fair ways from North America, one can expect that he never strays far from home for long. Sooner or later, he winds up back near New York again. )

➤ Questionable if the anti-mutagen would work as intended at this current stage; the significant difference in size might not be as large a factor as one might anticipate, but the duration of him being in this state might. There is a possibility that he's built up a tolerance; while he can still be picked apart, injecting it straight into his bloodstream might not completely dismantle him as it would have had he resurfaced sooner.

[scotianostra]

On the 15th of April 1641 Sir Robert Sibbald, physician and geographer was born.

Physician, geographer and natural historian, and a bit of an all round polymath Robert was born in Edinburgh, although the family fled to Linlithgow in 1645 to avoid the plague. Sibbald witnessed the sacking of Dundee by General Monk in 1651. He was educated initially in Cupar, near the family estate, and later at the High School and University in Edinburgh.

After returning from medical studies on the continent, Sibbald established the first botanical garden in Edinburgh , along with Andrew Balfour . He was the first Professor of Medicine at the University, founded the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh and was physician to King James VII. He was also Cartographer-Royal for Scotland.

He wrote books on the topography of Fife and Stirlingshire, and drew on the work of other mapmakers to contribute to various works on Scotland, although his own Scottish Atlas was never published.

Sibbald died in 1722 having contributed much to the medical profession and intellectual life of Edinburgh. He is buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard in in a vault against the southern wall. 

The wild flower Sibbaldia procumbens is named after him. Originally the blue whale was named after Sibbald, who first described it scientifically. Although the blue whale is today usually classified as one of eight species in the genus Balaenoptera, one authority still places it in a separate monotypic genus, Sibbaldus, but this is not widely accepted. The blue whale was once commonly referred to as Sibbald’s rorqual.

[sobeksintern]

Hell, even the genus name for the humpback whale, Megaptera, is a reference to its bigass flippers, a much more noticeable feature. Sidebar, I'm pretty sure a bunch of different studies have found humpbacks should not have their own genus and should be put in Balaenoptera.

This has been bothering me

[bluewhaleking]

History of the Blue Whale King, Part V: 13,650,000 - 5,000,000 BC

And thus the genus Balaenoptera was born. Though its members started small, the expanding throat pouch allowed for larger body sizes, and the whales of Balaenoptera surpassed 30 feet. Within a few million years, some reached 40.

Unfortunately, this was the new limit. Despite the Antarctic Circumpolar Current having existed since ~34,000,000 BC, there was just not enough food for filter feeders to reach the giant sizes they dreamed of.

Meanwhile, all the whales lived in fear of predators. Most were raptorial Sperm Whales, such as Acrophyseter and Zygophyseter. But worst of all were the giant macroraptorial Sperm Whale Livyatan Melvillei, and the giant shark Carcharocles Megalodon. Both reached lengths of 50 feet, with some reaching 60 or even 70, far larger than any baleen whale.

Unfortunately, some of the Balaenoptera whales lost faith in the King and Queen. In around 10,00,000 BC, a group split off the main lineage, and another splitoff occured in 7,500,000 BC. The first splitters became the ancestors of today's Humpback, Gray, Minke, and Fin Whales, while the other group led to the ancestors of Sei, Bryde's, and Omura's Whales.

But no matter. There were already seperate lineages of Cetaceans beyond the King and Queen's authority. They did not force anyone to follow them. Though it was unfortunate that lineages which murdered their fellow Cetaceans achieved the largest size.

But in 5,331,000 BC, the Miocene rolled over to the Pliocene, and with the new epoch, the Balaenoptera King found an opportunity. Wind-driven upwellings brought cold water and nutrients from the deep to the surface, causing massive plankton blooms. A far greater food supply meant the possibility of far greater body sizes. The King's dream, now over 60 million years old, was finally within sight.

Thus it was that he called a conference at the beginning of the Pliocene. He told his people, "This new supply of plankton is far beyond anything we've seen. We have the biology to exploit it. All we need to do now is gorge ourselves and pass on our biggest genes, and we will reach a far greater size than not only our current selves, but Megalodon and Livyatan. And we will gain more size in the next two million years than in the past 45 million combined."

Those still under his command rejoiced. Parliment voted unanimously, with support from the people, to deliver an ultimatum to the predators:

"Stop hunting us, or be destroyed."

Livyatan, the other raptorial Sperm Whales, and Megalodon laughed. In fact, the Megalodon King and Livyatan Emperor decided to have a contest to see who could eat the most whales. This contest sooned turned bloody, and thus began the Megalodon VS Livyatan War.

While the giant sharks and Sperm Whales fought each other, the Balaenoptera King's species (the one they were at this time has not yet been named by humans) grew larger at an unprecedented rate. Within 331,000 years, they grew from an average length of 30-35 feet to 50-60 feet. The other baleen species grew as well, though not by as much.

By 5,000,000 BC, it was too much for Lyviatan Melvillei to handle. They did not have enough success hunting larger prey, and combined with casualties from their war with Megalodon, the species went extinct. That was the end of the raptorial Sperm Whales, the others had already gone extinct a few million years prior.

The largest Baleen Whale species, the one under the command of the King and Queen, was Balaenoptera Sibbaldina. That time period marked the transition from tens millions of years of being small, to becoming the largest animals to ever live on Earth.

[namu-the-orca]

A Myriad of Mysticetes

Here they are, the very last of 2021’s commissioned illustrations (spare some that can’t be released yet pending publication, a couple of duplicates and one single Melon-headed whale I somehow didn’t manage to fit in anywhere) - and the last of the bad alliteration titles. The grand bearded whales, the Mysticetes, or, more specifically, the Balaenoptera genus. (The minkes also belong to this genus, but they already got their own poster thingy.)

When seen as a fleeting back at sea, they might appear like rather boring grey blobs compared to their more interestingly marked dolphin cousins. And older illustrations would agree. I think it has a lot to do with their size (hard to get a proper overview of a 20 m animal) as well as the delicacy of their markings, requiring really good conditions to show up in photos. However, as technology and opportunities developed and more and more footage of these animals emerges, a different picture emerges too: that of a complex, and intricately marked animal just as beautiful as any dolphin.

Having them all in a row it is interesting to compare markings. Chevrons (the V-shaped markings over the pectoral fin, meeting on the back) are a fan favourite, as well as the a white ear lines, “flipper shadows” (dark markings originating from the armpit), and a lighter grey lateral field covering much of their side. Only the Blue whale seems to miss out, though they’ve got a light chevron over the eye and lots of spots to make up for it. I thought it interesting to add my (older) Omura’s whale illustrations too, because at first glance they’re very similar to Fin whales, but upon closer inspection one can find many differences. 

I hope you will enjoy these last of the illustrations, and join me in marvelling at the hidden beauty of big Balaenopterids.

[aiweirdness]

Facts about whales

When a neural net can imitate just about any kind of text on the internet, the challenge is to tell it precisely what to imitate. In my last preview of OpenAI’s new API, I asked it some pretty basic questions about horses, and it often got them wrong.

Q: How many eyes does a horse have? A: 4. It has two eyes on the outside and two eyes on the inside.

But part of the problem seemed to be that it thought I was asking for jokes. Once it finished answering the horse question, it would sometimes add questions of its own, such as:

Q: Why is the sky blue? A: Because blue is the only color the sun trusts. Sure enough, if I prompted it with FAKE whale facts from the @awhalefact twitter account, it responded with more fake facts (even copying the informal grammar):

a new study suggests that whales swim around because it makes them happy and it is not for any other reason

i can see into your soul from my balcony and i know that you are afraid of whales

when someone tells you they want to show you something cool, you should just assume they want to show you a whale

did you know that there are more than 10 billion planets in the universe that are all entirely covered in whales

Is there a way I can prompt this neural net such that I get Serious Answers Only? Since its task is to predict the text that is the most likely to come next, I tried ask it to add to an existing list of eight true facts about whales. At a temperature of 0.9 (enough for some variety, hopefully not enough for chaos) and allowing it to pick what it deemed the most likely of 10 tries, here’s one of its lists of facts. (I’ve annotated its “facts” as true or false.)

Whales all have two blowholes. [False]

Whales can easily be identified by the pigment of their skin. [False]

Whales are very intelligent. [True]

One of the smallest whales measures 3 feet in length as an adult. [False]

The life span of a blue whale is 100 years. [False]

The oldest known whale is 211 years old. [True]

Whales consume 3,000 pounds of food per day. [True (but only for some)]

There are two main types of whales: toothed whales and baleen whales. [True]

Whales can hold their breath for up to 4 minutes when resting. [False]

So it produces a mix of true facts and true-sounding made-up facts. Its fact about the smallest whale is technically just one character off from the truth (the smallest whale measures up to 9 feet long), so by its standards it’s almost correct. A Buzzfeed listsicle type of prompt (“10 amazing facts you didn’t know about whales!”) produced also produced plenty of false facts.

Scientists have recently discovered that the brains of whales are larger than human brains.

Dolphins don't just have to live in the water. Some live in the desert.

Whales are found in all of the oceans, but not in the sea. The sea is too salty for them to be able to live in.

I decided to try another tactic, and fed it the first sentences of the Wikipedia article on whales.

My prompt: Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. They are an informal grouping within the infraorder Cetacea, usually excluding dolphins and porpoises. Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the order Cetartiodactyla, which consists of even-toed ungulates. Their closest living relatives are the hippopotamuses, having diverged about 40 million years ago. The AI’s response: Although whales were historically thought to have descended from mesonychids, their closest living relatives are now thought to be hippopotamuses. Megaptera novaeangliae, or the humpback whale, is a species of baleen whale. One of the largest rorqual species, adults range in length from 12–16 m and weigh about 36,000 kg. The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is known for breaching and other distinctive surface behaviors, making it popular with whale watchers. Its diet consists mostly of krill and small fish, though it may also eat plankton, squid, and copepods. Like all large whales, the humpback was a target for the whaling industry, and once numbering in the tens of thousands, the worldwide population fell to an estimated 5,000. Orcas, also known as killer whales, are large dolphins belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, which includes the other large whales, the pilot whales and sperm whales. Orcas are highly social; some populations are composed of matrilineal family groups which are the most stable of any animal species. Their sophisticated hunting techniques and vocal behaviors, which are often specific to a particular group and passed across generations, have been described as manifestations of culture.

I’m not bothering to fact-check each sentence, because it’s basically 100% correct every single time.

But then I started googling individual sentences. It turns out most of them are near word-for-word reproductions of Wikipedia sentences. If the AI were a student, it would be flunked for plagiarism.

It makes sense that an internet-scraping AI would be able to quote Wikipedia text - those sentences really get around. The sentence that starts “Orcas are highly social” is no longer on Wikipedia but seems to have been part of the orca article around 2008, and appears on the internet in 122 places, including in a Twilight fanfic.

To get ORIGINAL facts, I decided to write a few sentences of original fact-filled text about whale evolution.

My prompt: "Whales are a relatively young group of mammals, having evolved from land-dwelling creatures about 50 million years ago. Their terrestrial ancestors were small raccoon-sized hoofed mammals, carnivorous like other ungulates of the time. Over an astonishingly quick period of time (15 million years at most, possibly less than 5 million), these land mammals made the transition to an aquatic lifestyle, gaining at first denser bones and an ear structure that allowed them to hear more easily underwater. Soon they began to look more crocodilian, their eyes migrating to the tops of their heads. "

AI’s response: Whales, and especially baleen whales, are well known for their enormous size, but most types of whales are not larger than a full-grown adult human. Exceptions include the blue whale, the largest animal ever known, the extinct "Basilosaurus", which was longer than a blue whale and likely the largest animal to have ever existed, and the "shovelnose" whales, especially the genus "Balaenoptera" which include the blue whale, "B. musculus", the fin whale, "B. physalus", and the sei whale, "B. borealis".

This reads well but is frequently wrong. Most types of whales are CONSIDERABLY larger than a full-grown adult human. Basilosaurus was not longer than a blue whale. There is no such thing as a shovelnose whale. Would that there were.

To this AI, SOUNDING correct is more important than actually BEING correct.

What about other styles of delivering true facts? (Below, my prompt is in bold, and the rest is unedited AI)

Darth Vader stood with his back to them, gloves gripping the console. "Did you know that the blue whale is the largest animal that ever lived?" "N-no, Lord Vader," said the stormtrooper. "And yet the blue whale eats krill, which are miniscule. It can engulf up to two hundred twenty tons of water at a time." "I am fascinated, Lord Vader." The black-caped Vader turned slightly toward him. "Would you like to hear more about the whales?" "Yes, Lord Vader," came the stormtrooper's tremulous voice. "I would like very much to hear about the whales." "They can make some of the loudest and lowest sounds of any creature known. The groans of blue whales can travel thousands of kilometers through the ocean. Their calls can be heard from the surface all the way to the seafloor, some three thousand meters below the surface. You could hear the cries of a single blue whale in Tokyo and hear the answer from the one in San Francisco." "I see," said the stormtrooper. "Have you ever heard the cries of a blue whale, sergeant?" "No, Lord Vader. I have never heard the cries of a blue whale." "I see," said Vader. "And have you ever seen a blue whale, sergeant?" "No, Lord Vader. I have never seen a blue whale." "No one has. They live too deep in the ocean. No human has ever seen a blue whale and lived to tell the tale. Until today." "I... I have seen a blue whale, Lord Vader?" "That is correct, sergeant. Until today, no human has ever seen a blue whale and lived. But now you have seen one." "I have seen one," said the stormtrooper, turning to face Vader, head shaking. "Yes, Lord Vader. I have seen one. I have seen a blue whale."

Subscribers get bonus content: I experimented with a few other ways of generating questionable whale facts.

My book on AI is out, and, you can now get it any of these several ways! Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Indiebound - Tattered Cover - Powell’s - Boulder Bookstore

[carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory]

Scientist Takeover: Mammals!

What is the largest mammal?

This is an easy one because it is not even close; the blue whale, which is also the largest animal to ever live on Earth, weighs around 100 tons (220,000 pounds) and is about 100 feet long. Females are typically larger than males. Despite their bulk, blue whales are filter feeders subsisting on krill, small crustaceans less than an inch in length.

In 1758, Carl Linnaeus gave the blue whale the Latin name Balaenoptera musculus. The first part, Balaenoptera, the genus name, means winged whale for its long, slender flippers; the second part, the species name, is thought to be a joke by Linnaeus because it is also the species name he gave to the house mouse, Mus musculus.

Here is the left mandible (lower jaw) of a blue whale on the second floor in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Notice that it dwarfs the adult polar bear behind it.

What is the smallest mammal?

This is harder than the largest one—the blue whale—because there are two mammals considered to be very close in weight: the Etruscan shrew with a Mediterranean and Asian distribution weighs in about 1.8 grams, which is less than the bumblebee bat from Thailand and Myanmar, weighing in around just 2 grams, but the shrew is longer than the bat. Remember there are 28 grams in one ounce and 2 grams is the weight of one paperclip! 

This is the smallest North American mammal, the American pygmy shrew. This example, from the research collections of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, is under four inches in total length.

What is the fastest land mammal?

The cheetah is hands down the fastest, but it does not sustain speed over a great distance; the cheetah is a burst-predator with a chase lasting typically less than a minute. The cheetah goes from 0 to 60 miles per hour in about three seconds, which is what a good sports car can do! At top speed, the length of one stride is 21 feet and there are four strides per second.

Everything about the cheetah is built for speed and hunting. This view of a skull in the research collection of Carnegie Museum of Natural History shows enormous orbits for its large eyeballs providing keen vision and its very large nasal opening, which allows more oxygen to enter the lungs.

What is the slowest land mammal?

The name says it all...sloth! There are two types of sloths found in the tropics of Central America and northern South America, usually called three-toed and two-toed sloths. This is a misnomer as both types have three toes on their hindfeet; what differs is the number of fingers on the forefeet. So, they really should be called three- and two-fingered sloths. Both sloths live most of their lives in trees on a diet of leaves and move so slowly or so little that algae grow on their fur, providing camouflage. Of the two sloths, the three-digited one is smaller and slower.

This skin of a three-toed sloth from the research collection of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History shows a mammal built for hanging around in trees, with its long arms and hook-like claws on all four limbs.

What is the strongest mammal?

This is just a playful question. It usually isn’t one of the comparisons that scientists try to make.  However, the armored hero shrew seems like a good nominee. This shrew lives in the forested region of central Africa. Its spinal column is unique among mammals. The mid-portion is extremely modified with many interlocking bony tubercles that project forward and backward to fortify the spine. The exact purpose is unknown. However, it has been reported that a full-grown man could stand on the back of an armored shrew without harming the animal. 

The skin and partial vertebral column of an armored hero shrew from the research collection of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History shows the beautifully intricate bony structure of the spinal column, which lies hidden inside of a perfectly normal looking long-haired shrew.

John Wible is Curator of the Section of Mammals and Sue McLaren is Collection Manager of the Section of Mammals at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. This post is part of Super Science Days: Scientist Takeover! 

[ayyubnadhifatthallah]

Paus Biru, Mamalia Terbesar di Bumi!

Mamalia laut adalah mamalia yang bergantung pada samudra untuk bertahan hidup. Tingkat kebergantungan pada lingkungan laut berbeda pada masing-masing spesies. Misalnya, lumba - lumba dan paus sepenuhnya bergantung pada laut selama hidupnya, sementara anjing laut makan di samudra, tetapi berkembangbiak di darat.

Saat ini terdapat sekitar 128 spesies mamalia laut, seperti anjing laut, paus, lumba - lumba dan walrus. Walaupun jumlahnya sedikit bila dibandingkan dengan mamalia darat, jumlah biomassa mereka besar. Mereka memainkan peran penting dalam menjaga ekosistem laut, terutama dalam meregulasi populasi mangsa. Namun, saat ini 23% mamalia laut terancam, dan hal ini menimbulkan kekhawatiran.

Paus Biru

Paus Biru? Mungkin belum banyak yang tahu jika paus yang selama ini dikenal sebagai ikan ternyata adalah mamalia. Paus Biru dengan nama latin Balaenoptera musculus adalah mamalia terbesar di dunia dan hingga saat ini masih bertahan hidup di samudera yang luas. Seperti dengan lumba - lumba, hewan ini digolongkan sebagai mamalia karena paus tidak bertelur sepert ikan pada umumnya, selain itu Paus Biru juga berkembangbiak secara melahirkan.

Layaknya mamalia lainnya, meski hidup di perairan ternyata ikan paus bernafas menggunakan paru-paru dan tidak memiliki insang. Faktanya! Paus adalah satu-satunya mamalia yang hidup dibawah laut sepanjang hidupnya.

Klasifikasi ilmiah

Kerajaan :Animalia

Filum :Chordata

Kelas :Mammalia

Ordo :Cetartiodactyla[a]

Infraordo :Cetacea

Parvordo :Mysticeti

Famili :Balaenopteridae

Genus :Balaenoptera

Spesies : B. musculus

Paus Biru bisa tumbuh mencapai panjang 33 meter dan berat hingga 181 ton. Meski sebagai satwa raksasa, ternyata paus justru memakan hewan-hewan mikro yaitu plankton, udang, hingga ikan yang berukuran kecil. Tidak seperti kebanyakan hewan lain dimana jantan berukuran lebih besar dan berbobot berat, Paus Biru betina malah memiliki tubuh lebih berat dibandingkan paus jantan.

Paus Biru adalah penguasa lautan di bumi, daya jelajahnya sangat luas dan bisa ditemukan hampir di seluruh samudera, kecuali di perairan dangkal dan lautan yang tertutup tanah seperti Laut Merah dan Laut Mediterania.

Migrasi

Mamalia terbesar yang hidup di laut ini biasanya melakukan migrasi dengan berpindah dari tempat yang bersuhu dingin ke tempat bersuhu hangat untuk berkembang biak. Masa kehamilan paus berkisar antara 10 bulan hingga 12 bulan. Setiap dua atau tiga tahun sekali, paus betina umumnya akan melahirkan satu anak. Pola migrasi paus biru tidak banyak diketahui. Misalnya, paus biru kerdil telah ditemukan di Samudra Hindia bagian utara (Oman, Maladewa, Sri Lanka), dan mungkin mereka membentuk populasi yang berbeda.

Perburuan paus biru dilarang oleh International Whaling Commission pada tahun 1962, dan perburuan paus ilegal yang dilakukan oleh Uni Soviet akhirnya dihentikan pada tahun 1970-an. Pada saat itu, 330.000 paus biru ditangkap di Antartika, 33.000 di Belahan Selatan, 8.200 di Pasifik Utara, dan 7.000 di Atlantik Utara. Populasi di Antartika jumlahnya berkurang hingga hanya 0,15% dari jumlah awal mereka yang tersisa.

Dilihat dari angka kelahiran tersebut, sudah bisa kita tebak akan berpengaruh terhadap jumlah satu populasinya. Paus Biru atau Balaenoptera musculus adalah mamalia dengan populasi rendah dan mengalami banyak ancaman kepunahan, antara lain karena dijadikan hewan buruan, terkena dampak polusi, perubahan iklim, terjerat jaring nelayan, tabrakan dengan kapal, eksploitasi habitat laut yang berlebihan dan sebagainya. Ancaman-ancaman tersebut harus segera dihentikan agar kelestarian Paus Biru terus berlangsung.

Referensi

Gambell, R (1979). "The blue whale". Biologist. 26: 209–215.

Best, PB (1993). "Increase rates in severely depleted stocks of baleen whales". ICES J. mar. Sci. 50: 169–186.

Yablokov, AV (1994). "Validity of whaling data". Nature. 367: 108.

T.A. Branch, K. Matsuoka and T. Miyashita (2004). "Evidence for increases in Antarctic blue whales based on Bayesian modelling". Marine Mammal Science. 20 (4): 726–754. doi:10.1111/j.1748-7692.2004.tb01190.x.

[haveyouseenthisanimal-irl]

[tangledwing]

A whale of a mouthful by Michael AW (Australia). A Bryde’s whaleSuperfamily: Balaenopteroidea, Genus: Balaenoptera rips through a swirling ball of sardines, gulping a huge mouthful in a single pass. Photograph: Michael AW/2015

[indonesia-fauna]

PAUS BIRU Paus merupakan mamalia terbesar yang hidup di bumi,paus juga merupakan salah satu mamalia yang bisa hidup di dalam air selain lumba-lumba.Paus biru sendiri memiliki panjang mencapai lebih dari 33 meter dan memiliki massa 181 ton atau lebih. Binatang ini dipercaya sbg hewan terbesar yang pernah ada di dunia.pola makannya memuat secara inti crustacea kecil seperti plankton dan udang udang kecil, tetapi tidak menutup kemungkinan paus biru memakan ikan ikan kecil dan cumi-cumi. Paus biru pada bahasa Inggris acapkali diklaim sebagai Blue Whale, Pygmy Blue Whale, Sibbald’s Rorqual, Sulphur-bottom Whale. Sedangkan dalam bahasa latin, paus biru dinamai Balaenoptera musculus. Linnaeus memberi nama paus biru menggunakan nama genus yg dari dari kata Latin balaena yg berarti “paus” serta kata Yunani pteron yg berarti “sirip” atau “sayap.” Nama spesiesnya, musculus, ialah kependekan istilah Latin mus yg berarti “tikus”. kata “musculus” mampu mampu pula diartikan menjadi “otot”. Paus biru (Balaenoptera musculus) memiliki tubuh panjang dan lonjong dengan panjang tubuh mencapai 33 meter serta berat (massa) mencapai 181 ton atau lebih. menggunakan ukurannya ini paus biru dipercaya menjadi hewan terbesar yg pernah ada di global. warna punggung paus biru didominasi sang rona biru kehijauan atau abu-abu dengan pembatas putih tipis. Sedangkan pada bagian perut mempunyai rona yang lebih terperinci. Ujung ketua dan ekor umumnya berwarna abu-abu. Paus biru memiliki ketua pipih berbentuk U. di permukaan kepala terdapat lubang untuk mengisap oksigen serta membuang karbondioksida. ketika bernafas, paus mengeluarkan sebuah semburan kolom vertikal yg menakjubkan (seperti air mancur) menggunakan ketinggian mencapai 12 meter. Paru-paru paus biru dapat menampung udara hingga 5000 liter. Ikan paus memiliki alat peraba dan telinga yang tajam. dia mengetahui arah pada pada air dengan mengikuti gema suara yang dibuatnya. Selain menjadi indera navigasi, bunyi yg dihasilkan dianggap jua sebagai bentuk komunikasi antar sesama serta buat mendeteksi mangsa. Paus biru (Balaenoptera musculus) merupakan binatang mammalia. binatang terbesar pada global ini pun menyusui anaknya layaknya mammalia lainnya. Bedanya, air susu ikan paus biru agak berbeda asal yg kita kenal. Bentuknya agak padat dan sangat berlemak. Induk paus memiliki otot khusus di lebih kurang kelenjar susu. ketika ikan paus menggerakkan otot ini, tekanan yg didapatkan menghasilkan induk tersebut bisa menyemprotkan air susu eksklusif ke pada verbal bayinya.

yang unik lagi, ternyata makanan binatang super besar menggunakan ukuran terbesar pada global ini tidak sebanding menggunakan berukuran tubuhnya. Paus biru (Balaenoptera musculus) ternyata mempunyai makanan primer krill. Krill artinya homogen udang mungil dengan berukuran kurang lebih 8-60 mm. Unik, binatang sebanyak 33 meter memiliki kuliner binatang seukuran 8 milimeter, meskipun dalam seharinya, paus biru memakan hingga 40 juta ekor krill atau kurang lebih 3,6 ton krill. tempat asal, Persebaran, Populasi, dan konservasi Paus Biru. Paus biru artinya mammalia bahari yang bisa ditemukan hampir pada semua belahan bumi termasuk di perairan Indonesia. sampai awal abad ke-20, paus biru (Balaenoptera musculus) bisa ditemukan pada jumlah yang melimpah pada seluruh dunia dengan kisaran populasi antara 200.000-300.000 ekor. namun sekarang berdasarkan perkiraan IUCN Redlist populasi hewan terbesar ini diperkirakan hanya tersisa antara 11.000 dan 25.000 ekor saja. Menurunnya populasi paus biru diakibatkan oleh perburuan yg dilakukan sejak akhir 1800-an. Perubahan temperatur laut diperkirakan juga mempengaruhi populasi krill yg menjadi kuliner utama paus biru. Hal ini memberikan dampak di jumlah populasi paus biru. Karena populasinya yg semakin menurun, IUCN Redlist memasukkan paus biru (Balaenoptera musculus) dalam status perlindungan endangered (Terancam Punah) sejak 1996. CITES jua telah memasukkan paus biru ke dalam daftar Apendiks I. Sedangkan di Indonesia, paus biru termasuk dalam hewan yg dilindungi dan tercantum dalam PP No. 7 Tahun 1999. Paus biru, Balaenoptera musculus, atau Blue Whale memang mempunyai tubuh raksasa dan sebagai makhluk hidup terbesar di global. Meskipun demikian, kelestariannya tetap membutuhkan kepedulian dari kita seluruh, insan.

[scotianostra]

On the 15th of April 1641 Sir Robert Sibbald, physician and geographer was born.

Physician, geographer and natural historian, and a bit of an all round polymath Robert was born in Edinburgh, although the family fled to Linlithgow in 1645 to avoid the plague. Sibbald witnessed the sacking of Dundee by General Monk in 1651. He was educated initially in Cupar, near the family estate, and later at the High School and University in Edinburgh.

After returning from medical studies on the continent, Sibbald established the first botanical garden in Edinburgh , along with Andrew Balfour . He was the first Professor of Medicine at the University, founded the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh and was physician to King James VII. He was also Cartographer-Royal for Scotland.

He wrote books on the topography of Fife and Stirlingshire, and drew on the work of other mapmakers to contribute to various works on Scotland, although his own Scottish Atlas was never published.

Sibbald died in 1722 having contributed much to the medical profession and intellectual life of Edinburgh. He is buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard in in a vault against the southern wall. 

The wild flower Sibbaldia procumbens is named after him. Originally the blue whale was named after Sibbald, who first described it scientifically. Although the blue whale is today usually classified as one of eight species in the genus Balaenoptera, one authority still places it in a separate monotypic genus, Sibbaldus, but this is not widely accepted. The blue whale was once commonly referred to as Sibbald's rorqual.

[orcinus-ocean]

Endangered Cetaceans, part 20

Sei whale, Balaenoptera borealis

The third entry in this series of the Balaenoptera genus, the sei whale is the fourth largest rorqual after the blue, fin and humpback whale (which, while not a Balaenoptera, is a rorqual as well)

Also known as the “lesser fin whale” due to its similarity to its larger cousin, it is extremely fast, but does not have great stamina.

They vary in size across the globe, so that males average from 13.7 - 18.6 meters and 15 - 20 tons, and females, which are considerably larger, from 15 - 19.5 meters and 18.5+ tons, across different parts of the world. The whales in the southern hemisphere are the largest, the ones in the North Pacific are the smallest.

A newborn calf measures 4.4 - 4.5 meters in length, roughly similar to a beluga whale, and they wean from their mother when they measure 8-9 meters, at only 6-9 months old.

An adult eats about 900 kg of food every day, in the shape of zooplankton, krill, and copepods.

Despite its scientific name (”borealis” meaning “northern”), the sei whale is found almost all over the world, except for the coldest arctic and antarctic waters, the northern Indian ocean, and a few smaller seas.

The entire species is classified as endangered, with no subpopulations listed separately. They were moved up to this listing in 1996, before which they were considered vulnerable.

Like with virtually all other baleen whales, old, large-scale industrial whaling is what nearly killed off the species, and is the reason for their threatened status even today.

Large-scale whaling ended decades ago and was decreasing before then, but it takes a very long time for such a slow-reproducing animal (11 month pregnancy, one calf every 2-3 years, 8-10 years for calf to reach sexual maturity) to return to its former abundance.

In the 19th and 20th century, about 255 000 sei whales were taken, and today, there are around 80 000 in the entire world. That’s eight times as many as there are blue whales, but it’s still barely a third of its original population estimate.

North Atlantic

14 000 were taken in the North Atlantic (on both the European and American side), as well as an unknown number of 30 000 unidentified rorquals.

Prior to WW2, not counting the unidentified whales, 7500 sei whales were taken off Norway and Britain, but fewer than 200 in the period following, due to depletion. They are now apparently extinct in the region - surveys in the area during a span of 13 years (1987, 1989, and every year from 1995-2005) found only a single sei whale.

In the central north Atlantic (Iceland) however, the species is still abundant, where a survey in 1989 estimated the species to be 10 300 strong.

There is no recent estimate for the western North Atlantic, by the northern United States and Canada’s east coast. The last estimate comes from the late 1960s, and put the population at just over 2000 whales. 1200 sei whales were taken off Nova Scotia in 1962-71.

North Pacific

This population as well is not well studied, the last assessment being from 1974. The “exploitable population” in that time (animals large enough to be caught legally) had declined from 42 000 in 1963 to only 8600 in 1974 (or in other words, that’s a decline of 80% in half of one generation for the species).

Over 40 000 sei whales were caught there during this period. It was so bad, the Californian whaling stations during the 1960s had a 75% reduction in their sei whale catches, and they stopped hunting them in 1975. It is unknown how well the North Pacific population has recovered since then.

In a small survey of 1996 and 2001, only 56 whales were found off the American west coast.

In the Eastern Tropical Pacific, all potential sei/Bryde’s whales that could be specifically identified were found to be Bryde’s, suggesting that Sei Whales are now rare.

In one area of the western North Pacific (Asia), they are estimated at 4100 animals, but no assessment for the entire region has been accepted.

Southern Hemisphere

Over 200 000 of the 255 000 sei whales killed in large-scale whaling operations, were taken here, between 1905-1979. The greatest catches took place in 1960-1972 when over 5000 sei whales were killed every year, nearly 20 000 in 1964 alone.

This huge increase in the take of sei whales was largely due to the fact that the blue, fin and humpback whales were already severely depleted by that time.

Largely caught in Antarctic water in summer, they were also taken off Brazil, Peru, South Africa and Chile in winter.

Here as well, the most recent estimate is very old, from 1979. The “exploitable population” (estimated to be about two thirds of the entire population) had declined from 64 000 in 1960, to only 11 000 in 1979.

This excludes one area of the Antarctic (”Area II”), where nearly 30 000 sei whales were taken in only two seasons, from 1964-1966.

Abundance off Brazil declined by 90% during 1966-1972, and no recovery in the region has been recorded since then. Abundance estimates off South Africa declined by over 95% in the same period.

They became protected in the north in 1975, and in the south in 1979.

Like with many other large whales (if not all), they were saved on the doorstep of extinction, and would not be here today if industrial whaling hadn’t stopped when it did.

Other threats seem to be small in this species. Two sei whales ever have been recorded as killed by vessel strikes.

It is unknown how much current human activity is affecting them, but in 2015, 337 sei whales were found dead in Chile at the same time. Other than the frequent mass strandings of pilot whales, this is the largest mass stranding event of whales ever recorded.

http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/2475/0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sei_whale