In 1919, whalers pulled up a 27-ton humpback with two unmistakable legs hanging from its body. What looked like a freak sea monster turned out to be a clue hiding inside every whale: fingers buried in ...

Call it an unfinished story, but with a plot that's a grabber. It's the tale of an ancient land mammal making its way back to the sea, becoming the forerunner of today's whales. In doing so, it lost ...

In 1919, whalers pulled up a 27-ton humpback whale and saw something that should not have been there: two unmistakable legs. What first looked like a sea-monster story became one of the strangest ...

Alfred the aetiocetid had teeth but needed a better way to capture his tiny prey. Credit: Carl Buell Baleen whales, such as the gigantic 30m-long blue whale, are the largest animals that have ever ...

Long before the ocean’s largest filter-feeders roamed the seas, their smaller, sharper cousins ruled the warm shallows. One such predator, newly named Janjucetus dullardi, offers a striking glimpse ...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Long before whales were majestic, gentle giants, some of their prehistoric ancestors were tiny, weird and feral. A chance discovery of a 25 million-year-old fossil on an ...

About 25 million years ago, the warm, shallow seas off the southern coast of Australia were home to a bountiful scene of ocean-dwelling creatures. “In these seas, there was this extraordinary ...