Pelicans, whales have jaw-dropping similarity
Thursday, June 2, 2011 - 13:30
in Biology & Nature
One of the more surprising features of nature is the ability of two unrelated animals to independently evolve extremely similar body parts. In a new study, scientists demonstrate that rorqual whales — whose members include the largest animal on Earth, the blue whale — have come to share very similar feeding mechanisms and jaw structures with pelicans, despite clearly independent pathways of evolution.