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Well, this is the first of a series I’m doing on primitive whales to actually show what beautiful creatures whales are and I hope to convince people that it’s insane to hunt these magnificent, nearly extinct mammals.
So if you’re doing a series on extinct whales, Basilosaurus may not be missing. I am not particularly satisfied with this one and it was more of a practice for a new coloring style. Basilosaurus was vey slender and one of the first whales to grow truly large. In some popular-scientific books the length is said to have been 25 meters, although in real life, Basilosaurus was not nearly that large. Large males may have reached 18 meters by the end of their lives, although 15 meters was more common for younger males and females.
Next to Libycosaurus, Basilosaurus is the only name for a mammal with ‘saurus’ in it. This is due to a weird coincidence. The first remains found of Basilosaurus were all vertebrae and a lot of them! This made paleontologists think it were the vertebrae of a giant sea-serpent (although snake vertebrae look quite different). When a skull was found, people started doubting the serpentine nature of Basilosaurus as it had mammalian teeth, when a nearly complete skeleton was found, everyone knew this was a mammal instead of a snake. It still took the paleontologists some time to figure out this was a whale, though, having as a consequence that in many early pictures, Basilosaurus is depicted as a sort of mammalian snake with flippers.
Basilosaurus was not all that related to modern whales as it had a very different skull-build and still had hind-legs. Yes indeed, hind-legs. The hind-legs probably had toe-like structures on them and weren’t evolved to a second pair of flippers. According to Walking with (Prehistoric) Beasts these were used to keep the bodies of the male and the female together when mating, although this hypothesis is disputed. One thing is certain: it didn’t use them to walk.
I still hope you enjoy these basilosaurs and I wish you all a pleasant day! Regards!
P.S. Please don’t forget: [link] Very important!
So if you’re doing a series on extinct whales, Basilosaurus may not be missing. I am not particularly satisfied with this one and it was more of a practice for a new coloring style. Basilosaurus was vey slender and one of the first whales to grow truly large. In some popular-scientific books the length is said to have been 25 meters, although in real life, Basilosaurus was not nearly that large. Large males may have reached 18 meters by the end of their lives, although 15 meters was more common for younger males and females.
Next to Libycosaurus, Basilosaurus is the only name for a mammal with ‘saurus’ in it. This is due to a weird coincidence. The first remains found of Basilosaurus were all vertebrae and a lot of them! This made paleontologists think it were the vertebrae of a giant sea-serpent (although snake vertebrae look quite different). When a skull was found, people started doubting the serpentine nature of Basilosaurus as it had mammalian teeth, when a nearly complete skeleton was found, everyone knew this was a mammal instead of a snake. It still took the paleontologists some time to figure out this was a whale, though, having as a consequence that in many early pictures, Basilosaurus is depicted as a sort of mammalian snake with flippers.
Basilosaurus was not all that related to modern whales as it had a very different skull-build and still had hind-legs. Yes indeed, hind-legs. The hind-legs probably had toe-like structures on them and weren’t evolved to a second pair of flippers. According to Walking with (Prehistoric) Beasts these were used to keep the bodies of the male and the female together when mating, although this hypothesis is disputed. One thing is certain: it didn’t use them to walk.
I still hope you enjoy these basilosaurs and I wish you all a pleasant day! Regards!
P.S. Please don’t forget: [link] Very important!
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Also in Walking with (Prehistoric) Beasts,i think they said it was like 60 tonnes which is a joke.I don't know why BBC always increase the weight of animals.