TV News LIES

Monday, Oct 13th

Last update11:50:28 PM GMT

You are here News Science How old is sonar? Fossilized whale skull puts it at over 32 million years.

How old is sonar? Fossilized whale skull puts it at over 32 million years.

cotylocara maceio

Sperm whales do it. Dolphins do it. Orcas do it. And now, researchers have unveiled the fossilized skull of a 28-million-year-old marine mammal that did it too – used sound to find its next meal or swim safely through turbid waters.

The creature, Cotylocara macei, is the earliest known cetacean to show skeletal evidence for a natural form of sonar, according to a research team reporting the results in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

After comparing the nearly complete skull with those of other fossil cetaceans, the team placed C. macei on the evolutionary tree just above the common ancestor to all toothed cetaceans. That branch of the whale family uses echolocation to find its food, unlike their cousins who feed by straining seawater through boney baleen plates. Right and humpback whales are modern examples of these strainers.

The study "provides an important new piece of information on when echolocation originated, such that it originated almost immediately after the split between baleen whales and toothed whales," notes Frants Jensen, a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass., who studies marine echolocation.

More...

 


Most Recent Related Stories...


Nobel Prizes in Chemistry 2025 Awarded to 3

Nobel winners in ChemistryNobel winnerChemistry winnerSusumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025...

Webb telescope glimpses ‘volcanically growing monster’ on outskirts of Milky Way

Web image of stellar jetNASA's James Webb Telescope recently got a front-row seat to some incredible stellar fireworks on the...

Nobel in Physics awarded to three American professors

Nobel physicsThe Nobel physics prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and includes a...

Judge allows Trump to cut more than $1bn in National Science Foundation grants

$1B in science grants can be cutThe Trump administration can go ahead and purge more than 1,600 research grants issued by National...
 
America's # 1 Enemy
Tee Shirt
& Help Support TvNewsLIES.org!
TVNL Tee Shirt
 
TVNL TOTE BAG
Conserve our Planet
& Help Support TvNewsLIES.org!
 
Get your 9/11 & Media
Deception Dollars
& Help Support TvNewsLIES.org!
 
The Loaded Deck
The First & the Best!
The Media & Bush Admin Exposed!