Whales and Wiener Dogs

Mammalodon colliveri may have been a mud slurping bottom feeder (Brian Choo / Museum Victoria)

The evolutionary track of baleen whales has long been a mystery. It’s been theorized in the past that baleen - ridged plates that filter small creature from the water as whales swim - evolved after whales used their teeth for the same reason. But studies on a bizarre 25 million year old fossil from Australia suggest that baleen whales’ ancestors might have sucked ocean creatures from the muck on the ocean’s floor - a much simpler evolutionary link from teeth to baleen, say scientists.