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Full-Text Articles in Other Animal Sciences
Origin And Evolution Of Large Brains In Toothed Whales, Lori Marino, Daniel W. Mcshea, Mark D. Uhen
Origin And Evolution Of Large Brains In Toothed Whales, Lori Marino, Daniel W. Mcshea, Mark D. Uhen
Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection
Toothed whales (order Cetacea: suborder Odontoceti) are highly encephalized, possessing brains that are significantly larger than expected for their body sizes. In particular, the odontocete superfamily Delphinoidea (dolphins, porpoises, belugas, and narwhals) comprises numerous species with encephalization levels second only to modern humans and greater than all other mammals. Odontocetes have also demonstrated behavioral faculties previously only ascribed to humans and, to some extent, other great apes. How did the large brains of odontocetes evolve? To begin to investigate this question, we quantified and averaged estimates of brain and body size for 36 fossil cetacean species using computed tomography and …
Convergence Of Complex Cognitive Abilities In Cetaceans And Primates, Lori Marino
Convergence Of Complex Cognitive Abilities In Cetaceans And Primates, Lori Marino
Sentience Collection
What examples of convergence in higher-level complex cognitive characteristics exist in the animal kingdom? In this paper I will provide evidence that convergent intelligence has occurred in two distantly related mammalian taxa. One of these is the order Cetacea (dolphins, whales and porpoises) and the other is our own order Primates, and in particular the suborder anthropoid primates (monkeys, apes, and humans). Despite a deep evolutionary divergence, adaptation to physically dissimilar environments, and very different neuroanatomical organization, some primates and cetaceans show striking convergence in social behavior, artificial ‘language’ comprehension, and self-recognition ability. Taken together, these findings have important implications …