Abstract The Miocene epoch (23.03–5.33 Ma) was a time interval of global warmth, relative
to today. Continental configurations and mountain topography transitioned toward modern …

Humpback whales (M egaptera novaeangliae) are seasonal breeders, annually migrating
from high‐latitude summer feeding grounds to low‐latitude winter breeding grounds. The …

The precise pattern and timing of speciation events that gave rise to all living placental
mammals remain controversial. We provide a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of …

The evolution of cetaceans, from their early transition to an aquatic lifestyle to their
subsequent diversification, has been the subject of numerous studies. However, although …

Diet is a crucial trait of an animal's lifestyle and ecology. The trophic level of an organism
indicates its functional position within an ecosystem and holds significance for its ecology …

INTRODUCTION The iterative evolution of secondarily marine tetrapods since the Paleozoic
offers the promise of better understanding how the anatomy and ecology of animals change …

The Cenozoic diversification of placental mammals is the archetypal adaptive radiation. Yet,
discrepancies between molecular divergence estimates and the fossil record fuel ongoing …

Vertebrates have evolved to gigantic sizes repeatedly over the past 250 Myr, reaching their
extreme in today's baleen whales (Mysticeti). Hypotheses for the evolution of exceptionally …

Fossils provide our only direct window into evolutionary events in the distant past.
Incorporating them into phylogenetic hypotheses of living clades can help time-calibrate …

Reconstructing the evolution of baleen whales (Mysticeti) has been problematic because
morphological and genetic analyses have produced different scenarios. This might be …