But manatees are sea cows
Comment on Whales is whales
angrystego@lemmy.world 6 months agoWait, seals are sea doggos, right? Whales are sea cows.
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 6 months ago
angrystego@lemmy.world 6 months ago
They are called sea cows, but they’re really sea elephants? I hope I’m not terribly wrong.
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Why elephants? I mean whales are not cows just by looking at what they eat. In that way manatees eating mostly sea plants are closer to being cows. Are they not?
shuzuko@midwest.social 6 months ago
I think it’s a joke about manatees having evolved from the same land-based ancestor as elephants, making them pretty literally “sea elephants”.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Cetaceans evolved from a wolf like creature, not a bigine like one.
angrystego@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Did they? Wiki tells me “that cetaceans are phylogenetically closely related with the even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla)”. By the way, I like the fact that we’re both angry :)
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It depends on what you want to call pakicetus, I think it looks kinda dog like.
…berkeley.edu/…/the-evolution-of-whales/
The DNA may tell an entirely different story.
angrystego@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Pakicetus looks really cute in this reconstruction! I’ve always seen the species pictured looking as a kind of a big rat. This is so much better.