MMS 115: Evolutionary History and Marine Mammal Mastication

On this week’s episode Dr Ashley Scarlett chats with guest Dr Carlos Peredo about The evolutionary history of marine mammals and the extreme adaptations they developed for eating their prey.

Ashley’s Notes__________

how they became what they are today 

Changes in feeding ecology

Studying fossill whales (megafauna)- palaeontology 


(Ancestral whales) primitive whales Basilosaurs BACIL O SOURS

meaning “king lizard

The earliest specimens were found in Alabama in the 1830s,

functional pelvic limb

sharp-toothed creature that lived 40-35 million


Extreme modifications- and adapting to the marine life

How the mammal body change to become a marine mammal represent major evolutionary innovations

let’s generally do how marine mammals adapt to feeding in the water, with our biggest emphasis on whales and pinnipeds 

The evolutionary history of aquatic mammals

departed from using ancestral terrestrial feeding mechanisms and adopted novel ways of feeding

Short Bio:

Dr. Carlos Peredo is an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biology and a University of Michigan Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Scholar. His research focuses on understanding the macroevolutionary patterns associated with mammals returning to a marine environment. Carlos studies major ecological transitions in Earth history and how they drive the evolutionary origins of key innovations in mammals to facilitate life in the water. Currently Carlos is studying the loss of mastication in two lineages of marine mammals: whales and pinnipeds.

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