Ancient Whale Without Teeth or Baleen Explains Evolutionary Mystery

One of the great mysteries in marine research is how whales developed baleen, the unique array of plates and bristles that allow them to filter thousands of pounds of krill and plankton every day.Because baleen whales’ ancestors had teeth, it was thought that some ancient whales began to filter feed using their teeth like a sieve. Over time, the filtering behavior would have caused whales to evolve baleen to fill in the gaps of their teeth before replacing them entirely. Another theory w