How Did Whales Get So Huge?

--Samantha Price, evolutionary biologist and Assistant Professor at Clemson University, joins David to discuss how whales got so large and for a discussion more generally about the size of mammals on Earth

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Broadcast on May 21, 2018

[suomynona]

More recent theory is that animals got so big by eating cheese burgers and buckets of chicken and "excerising" by hand gesturing and waddling around golf courses.

[somebody]

This kind of interview is one of he aspects of TDPS that really sets it above many other shows. Sure, he hammers the politics, but he also sprinkles in great pieces of general interest and education, with wonderful women and men who are informed and very intelligent.... unlike myself!

[wendell]

She's very nice. Great video. I love listening to SCIENCE Experts, natural and physical.

[leeloominai]

Whales on the blause: check, whales (dolphins?) on the little carpet: check, books about whales: check - I think she likes to study whales...

[dmac]

One thing of note is that the largest of all whales are baleen types. Baleen is optimized for feeding on large masses of krill allowing them to take in all of those nutrients required to sustain such large bodies.

[JamesSmith-swnk]

"How Did Whales Get So Huge?"

They obviously eat a lot, d'uh! 😉

[shadowdance]

Besides the gravitational force factor. The other driver of the wax and wane in size of all living things on earth is the mass extinction level events in both the strength significance and how often they occur. Since usually extinction events affect land creators primarily and with the most impact their sizes are usually mostly impaired from reaching dinosaur level sizes very often.

[leeloominai]

Large mammals... "what may make these resurface" <- depends if barbecuing them at large social events will become popular for some reason or not?

[TJtheHuman]

What if a species of tiny omnivores to mountain ranges that get flooded over a few thousand years, each island population experiencing selection pressures of gigantism, and then the waters go back into the ice caps before the subspecies can fully speciate? Might the flow of gigantism genes between subspecies that each evolved it independently for a long time develop a species of shrews that are suddenly very large?
Do island dwarfism and island gigantism happen to populations isolated by urbanization, and aquatic populations?

[vivahernando]

Dolphins are toothed whales snark merchants.

[JamesChessman]

Great video!! Also I wonder if she likes to play any videogames like Ecco the Dolphin which has whales and ocean life...?

[StrideRunner]

Theirs no tree or mountain problem to the travel fracture just swim around them... more Veg or meat feedings..so on..ya

[ptolemyauletesxii]

Whales aren't the only animals that thrive off of krill... I do too! I have a rather copious mouth, and with my trusty flippers I swim effortlessly through the oceans, straining krill with a specially designed netting device that I had a dental surgeon install in my jaw.
She's right about the nutritive value of the little fellows. I've nearly doubled in size since embarking on my all krill diet two years ago. And tasty too!

[zhouyongkang]

Megalodons are so overrated. The Livyatans would've totally fucked them up back in the day, no doubt. Team whale ftw!

[ValirAmaril]

Is that a pressing question right now?

[hifijohn]

To all creationist, why would a superbeing create an animal that lives in the water but has to breath air??Doesnt seem like a very well thought out idea.

[kbeaverhousen]

Come on guys....

Orcas are dolphins, not whales.... I love orcas and I love this channel. Don't play me like this, David...

[ProgressiveVoice]

This is lame, why bring on such boring guests