It snuck up on us this year, perhaps you as well, but Sunday (Today) is “World Whale Day.” When I paw through the online references on how and when it was designated, I find that the day should actually be called “World Cetacean Day,” because it includes dolphins and porpoises as well, who are not really the “whales” that most of us imagine as super-large marine mammals.
All cetaceans are internationally honored on this day – always the third Sunday in February, since 2002. But the first whale days began in 1980 as a Hawaiian celebration of the peak of humpback whale activities around their islands. In 1980 commercial whaling was still happening (although outlawed in the US in 1971).
Finally in 1986 – due to global public sentiments nourished by events such as “Whale Days,” increased scientific interest in cetaceans, and the continued popularity of Roger Payne’s “Songs of the Humpback Whale,” the International Whaling Commission (IWC) put a moratorium on commercial whaling. Then in 1990, the IWC just called a stop to it all together – although Japan and Norway continue to kill these majestic creatures. (In 2025 Iceland is finally hung up the hooks due to dwindling demand.)
But setting aside the gory history for a moment, who are these amazing creatures we honor on this day?
Around 400 Million years ago marine vertebrates began migrating out of the water and into terrestrial environments. Soon enough they adapted to gravity, directly breathing air, and romping around on (mostly) four legs. Somewhere over the next 200 million years a lot of these terrestrial animals got up on their hind legs to appear as some of the most charismatic dinosaurs we know of today (tyranosurids, velociraptors, etc.) to eventually become birds.
The tetrapods, enjoying their gravitational attraction to the earth became the horses, cows, canines, felines, and the other 4-legged taxa we know today.
But it appears that there were a number of these tetrapods who were not entirely enthused by the reliable forces of gravity, so back 55-64 million years ago they began migrating back into the water. These became the cetaceans.
There were a lot of morphological adaptations over the eons, some worked better than others – to the point about 6 million years ago when the baleen whales (mysticetes or “mustache whales”), and the “ odontocetes” – toothed whales, had honed their physical forms perfectly to their respective ocean habitats and ecologies and have not physically changed much since then.
The question I have – because evolution never stops, is what evolutionary adaptations have occurred with these critters since they settled into their current morphologies?
Not wanting to speculate too much, but also appealing to my romantic sentiments; perhaps these animals have been evolving “internally.” What would account for the playful and compassionate behavior of captive dolphins and orcas who are spending the rest of their living days in what amounts to bathtubs – and not being pissed off at their captors?
-Michael Stocker
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Amblocetus out for a cruise.