An Australian paleobiologist has made a curious discovery about
the origins of baleen whales. Studying the 25-million-year-old
fossil of a primitive toothed baleen whale, Mammalodon
colliveri, Dr. Erich Fitzgerald hypothesized that the early
whale used its tongue and short, blunt snout to suck small prey
from sand and mud on the seafloor. Yummy. Fitzgeraldâ€™s work
supports Darwin's notion that some of the earliest baleen whales
may have been mudsuckers before they were filter-feeders. And
apparently the three-meter-long Mammalodon was actually a dwarf,
though its name brings to mind its relative, the blue whale --
the largest animall in the history of the world. As Dr.
Fitzgerald said, â€śClearly the seas off southern Australia were
a cradle for the evolution of a variety of tiny, weird whales
that seem to have lived nowhere else.â€ť