The study of rorqual evolution also defies simple Darwinian theories.
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It's not clear how much fish rorqual whales are consuming, but by studying their eating habits in this way, we stand a better chance of knowing.
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Unlike the nerves in most other species, rorqual whales (including the fin whale) are capable of stretching to double their size and shortening without sustaining damage—and we finally know how, thanks to findings published today in Current Biology.
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In 1969, Rorqual rammed a moored minesweeper, USS Endurance (MSO-435) while docking at River Point pier in Subic Bay, Philippines. The collision punched a large hole in Endurance's hull but did not damage Rorqual. At the time of the incident, Rorqual was commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Gavin Menzies who retired the following year and later published the controversial book 1421: The Year China Discovered America. Rorqual won the SOCA Efficiency trophy in 1973.
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Fragilicetus is an extinct genus of rorqual from Early Pliocene deposits in Belgium.
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Miobalaenoptera is an extinct genus of rorqual from the Late Miocene (Messinian) of Japan.
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In 1958, Rorqual experienced a fire. In February 1960, Rorqual visited the Mediterranean, calling at La Spezia in Italy and Nice in southern France before returning home to Faslane at the end of the month. In 1963, she was caught in a trawler's net. An explosion in 1966 killed one junior rate and injured the chief of the watch, who died ashore at Inhambane, Rorqual was off the coast of Mozambique en route to Singapore.
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On 13 Jun 1969, in Subic Bay, Philippines, USS Endurance was accidentally rammed by a Royal Navy submarine, HMS Rorqual (S02) with minor damage.Web Page for USS Endurance, coverage of Rorqual incident. Endurance was stricken 1 July 1972 and disposed of by Navy sale December 1973.
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Plesiobalaenoptera is a genus of extinct rorqual which existed in Italy during the late Miocene epoch. The type species is P. quarantellii. It is the oldest known rorqual from the Mediterranean basin. Fossils have been found from sediments of the Stirone River in northern Italy (, paleocoordinates ).
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The lighter could not be torpedoed, as she was of too shallow draught for the normal depth setting of the torpedoes, and the only other weapon the Rorqual had was her single 4-inch gun. Rorqual surfaced at about 500 yards range. Her opening attack hit the Ursus and damaged the battery. Heavy fire from the damaged tug forced Rorqual to shift her fire from the battery and engage the Ursus again, forcing her crew to abandon her.
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Rorqual arrived at the Laira breaker's yard near Plymouth on 5 May 1977. She was broken up by Davies & Cann.
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Archaebalaenoptera is a genus of extinct rorqual known from late Miocene to Pliocene-age marine deposits of the Netherlands, northern Italy, and Peru.
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Though badly damaged, the floating battery opened fire and forced the Rorqual to dive. She then fired a torpedo set to run on the surface, only to find that the torpedo developed a gyro failure and returned on its own tracks. Rorqual had to dive deep to avoid it. When last seen, the Ursus was sinking and the battery was on fire.
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Sent to the Mediterranean in 1940, Rorqual began laying minefields and attacking enemy shipping. Amongst the shipping lost to mines laid by Rorqual were the Italian merchants Loasso, Celio, Leopardi, and Salpi; the Italian Navy water tankers Verde and Ticino; the Italian pilot vessel F 34 / Rina Croce, the Italian torpedo boats Calipso, Fratelli Cairoli, Generale Antonio Chinotto, Altair and Aldebaran; the Italian auxiliary submarine chaser AS 99 Zuri, the German troop transport Ankara; the French merchant (in German service), P.L.M. 24; and the French fishing vessel Coligny. The Italian merchants Caffaro, Ischia and the brand-new Italian merchant Carbonello A. were damaged by mines laid by Rorqual. Rorqual was also active in attacking enemy shipping herself, torpedoing and sinking the Italian tanker Laura Corrado; the Italian submarine Pier Capponi; the Italian merchants Cilicia and ; the German tanker Wilhemsburg and the French merchant (in German service) Nantaise.
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Rorquals torpedoes also damaged the Italian auxiliary cruiser Piero Foscari, unsuccessfully attacked an Italian submarine and the Italian merchant Securitas, and sunk two Greek sailing vessels with gunfire. In August 1940 she attacked an Italian convoy, missing the Italian merchants Verace and Doris Ursino with torpedoes. Following this failed attack Rorqual was heavily depth charged by the Italian torpedo boat Generale Achille Papa. In January 1941 Rorqual attacked the tug Ursus and a floating battery mounted on a lighter.
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Menzies claims that the knowledge of the winds, currents, and sea conditions that he gained on this voyage was essential to reconstructing the 1421 Chinese voyage that he discusses in his first book. Critics have challenged the depth of his nautical knowledge. In 1969, Menzies was involved in an incident in the Philippines, when Rorqual rammed a U.S. Navy minesweeper, , which was moored at a pier. This collision punched a hole in Endurance but did not damage Rorqual.
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Diunatans is an extinct genus of rorqual. It lived in the North Sea during the Early Pliocene. Two specimens have been found from the Netherlands. They were collected from the Kattendijk Formation in the province of Zeeland, which is Zanclean in age.
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The three feet long head and its dentaries had no signs of either teeth nor tooth sockets. Cortesi noted that at that time few naturalists could assign cetacean fossils to individual species, and he therefore never named his specimen. thought the "Baleine de Cortesi" represented a distinctive species because it was a very small adult individual and because the curvature of the maxillary branches was less convex than in any other known whale. Other French naturalists; named it "Le rorqual de Cortési"; arguing that both Cortesi's fossil whales ("rorqual de Cortési" and "de Cuvier") were closely related to extant rorquals and the only difference between them was the much smaller size of the former.
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Bạch Long Vĩ Island and the waters around the island have listed 28 species of rare, threatened and endangered species, including two species of terrestrial plants in the genus Magnolia, 11 species of Coelenterata, 7 molluscan species and 8 species of vertebrate. Marine vertebrates include rorqual whales.Hải Phòng. The - Ngoc Hung. 2013.
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In 2003, Japanese scientists announced the discovery of a new species of rorqual, named Omura's whale (Balaenoptera omurai), after extensive studies of Bryde's whale (B. brydei). The scientists also claimed their research settled a long-standing taxonomic argument, and Bryde's whale and the pygmy Bryde's whale (B. edeni) are in fact two distinct species.
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Originally the blue whale was named after Sibbald, who first described it scientifically. Although the blue whale is today usually classified as one of eight species in the genus Balaenoptera, one authority still places it in a separate monotypic genus, Sibbaldus, but this is not widely accepted. The blue whale was once commonly referred to as Sibbald's rorqual.
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The Mount Pulgnasco specimen represents an early rorqual that fed differently from modern species. Compared to the laterally bowed dentaries of the latter, its dentary is more straight, which should have made it impossible to perform the intermittent ram feeding seen in modern rorquals. Another primitive character is that the anterior border of the supraoccipital is triangular and pointed like in Miocene Cetotheriidae.
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Photograph showing a small rorqual taken by villagers of Lamakera between 1915 and 1944. This is thought to likely be an Omura's whale (see text). As early as the late 19th century, the natives of Lila, Bohol, began hunting whales in the Bohol Sea. By the turn of the century, this had spread to nearby Pamilacan Island and later to Sagay, Camiguin.
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Several distinguishing characteristics can be seen in the skull of Diunatans, including a large occipital condyle and very small nasal bones compared to other rorquals. The tympanic bulla, which encapsulates the middle ear, is also large. Diunatans is the only known fossil rorqual from the North Sea. Many other fossil rorquals have been described, but all are now considered nomina dubia.
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Herman Melville called the blue whale "sulphur bottom" in his novel Moby Dick due to the accumulation of diatoms creating a yellowish appearance on their pale underside. The name rorqual comes from the Norwegian word rørhval, a reference to the whale’s throat grooves, which are an elastic structure of blubber and muscle also known as the ventral grove blubber extending from the chin to the umbilicus.
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The blue moss is collected by human traders in the employ of Cree, Inc. who travel among the native villages on an aquatic riding animal called a hipp (short for Hippocampus catamiti); it is then shipped to Earth to produce crephine, a combined anaesthetic and medicine. Other Ganymedian life-forms include the whale-like Gamma Rorqual, the tentacled land leet, and the four- winged Blanket Bat.
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Adult and juvenile rorqual fossil skeletons. Cerro Ballena (lit. "Whale Hill") is a Chilean Late Miocene palaeontological site hosting remains of cetaceans.Pyenson, N. D.; Gutstein, C. S.; Parham, J. F.; Le Roux, J. P.; Carreño Chavarría, C.; Little, H.; Adam Metallo, A.; Rossi, V.; Valenzuela- Toro, A. M.; Velez-Juarbe, J.; Santelli, C. M.; Rubilar Rogers, D.; Cozzuol, M. A. and Suárez, M. A. (2014).
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The sei whale (,The Norwegian word sei is pronounced or , in between English say and sigh but in many English accents closer to say. Balaenoptera borealis) is a baleen whale, the third-largest rorqual after the blue whale and the fin whale. It inhabits most oceans and adjoining seas, and prefers deep offshore waters. It avoids polar and tropical waters and semi-enclosed bodies of water.
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A specimen from the Late Pliocene of northern Italy, named "Cetotherium" gastaldii by and renamed "Balaenoptera" gastaldii by , was identified as a basal eschrichtiid by who recombined it to Eschrichtioides gastaldii. found that the gray whale is phylogenetically distinct from rorquals and that previous morphological studies were correct in the conclusion that the evolution of gulp feeding was a single event in the rorqual lineage.
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Protororqualus is a genus of extinct rorqual from the late Pliocene (Piacenzian, ) of Mount Pulgnasco, Italy (: paleocoordinates ). The analysis made by identified Protororqualus as a late representative of the rorquals which survived in the Mediterranean at least until the late Pliocene. This would indicate that the Mediterranean basin played a vital role in preserving primitive rorquals while more derived forms established themselves in other oceans.
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The supplies consisted mainly of aviation spirit for the Hurricane fighters defending Malta airspace, kerosene for cooking and mail. Passengers were carried in both directions. Also, in October 1943 Rorqual transported from Beirut to the island of Leros an entire battery of 40mm Oerlikon guns, with a jeep to tow them. This was intended to give some air defence to British troops stranded on the island under attack by German forces.
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Initially, the silenced propellers actually set up a distinctive resonant "singing". However, grooves were cut into the propellers and injected with a damping filler which cured the problem; Rorqual was later able to surface undetected off the Statue of Liberty. The silent running abilities made their sonar equipment particularly effective. Each submarine's armament consisted of eight 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes; six in the bow, and two in the stern.
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Alfred Knopf, New York. It has formerly been known as the little piked whale, the lesser or least rorqual, and the sharp-headed finner. American whalemen in the 19th century simply thought of them as "young finbacks" or a "Finback's calf", apparently under the impression that they were juveniles of their larger relative, the fin whale. They were also called zwergwal (German: "dwarf whale") or vågehval (Norwegian: "bay whale").
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In 1953, Handley tentatively referred the rib discovered in Oscoda during the 1927 schoolhouse excavation to the genus Balaena. He also reported the discovery of an Arkonan- aged rorqual rib of the genus Balaenoptera. The fossil had been discovered upright in the sand during the excavation of a cellar in Genesee County. Handley also reported the discovery of another walrus fossil, a skull catalogued as UMMP 32453 found in a Mackinac Island gravel deposit.
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Rorqual family (balaenopterids) use throat pleats to expand their mouths to take in food and sieve out the water. Balaenids (right whales and bowhead whales) have massive heads that can make up 40% of their body mass. Most mysticetes prefer the food-rich colder waters of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, migrating to the Equator to give birth. During this process, they are capable of fasting for several months, relying on their fat reserves.
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Omura's whale or the dwarf fin whale (Balaenoptera omurai) is a species of rorqual about which very little is known. Before its formal description, it was referred to as a small, "dwarf" or "pygmy" form of Bryde's whale by various sources.Ohsumi 1978, Wada and Numachi 1991, Carwardine 1995, Perrin et al. 1996, Kahn 2001, LeDuc and Dizon 2002, Kato 2002, and many others The common name and specific epithet commemorate Japanese cetologist Hideo Omura.
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In February 1867, a fisherman found an estimated male rorqual floating in the Río de la Plata near Belgrano, about ten miles from Buenos Aires, Argentina. After bringing it ashore he brought it to the attention of the German Argentine zoologist Hermann Burmeister, who described it as a new species, Balaenoptera bonaerensis, the same year.Burmeister, H. (1867). "Preliminary description of a new species of finner whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis)". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London: 707-713.
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The battery however did not sink, and was later towed to Dubrovnik. Due to her large size and space within the mine casing, Rorqual was well suited to carrying stores and in June 1941, after loading at Alexandria, became the first submarine to carry supplies to the beleaguered island of Malta. In all she performed, at considerable risk to the submarine, 5 storing runs to Malta in 1941 from Alexandria and in 1942 from Beirut. These were known as "magic carpet runs".
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Rieppel, O. (2002). Feeding mechanisms in Triassic stem-group sauropterygians: the anatomy of a successful invasion of Mesozoic seas Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 135, 33-63 In particular, it was probably a herbivore, filtering out algae and other small-sized flora from the substrates. Stomatosuchidae is a family of freshwater crocodylomorphs with rorqual-like jaws and minuscule teeth, and the unrelated Cenozoic Mourasuchus shares similar adaptations. Hupehsuchia is a lineage of bizarre Triassic reptiles adapted for suspension feeding.
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In 1870 he reported seeing a new species of whale (unofficially called Giglioli's Whale) off the coast of Chile long with two dorsal fins observed by Giglioli from Magenta, a warship of the Italian Royal Navy.Matthew A. Bille, Rumors of Existence: Newly Discovered, Supposedly Extinct, and Unconfirmed Inhabitants of the Animal Kingdom, Hancock House, 1995, p. 158. The Rorqual is the only similarly configured whale in the fossil record. A similar whale was seen a year later off the coast of Scotland.
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Finding Gloria Michelle well- suited for these endeavors, NOAA acquired her and assigned her to the Conservation Engineering Group at Gloucester. Too small to meet NOAA's criteria for entering commissioned service because she is under 90 feet (27.4 meters) in length, Gloria Michelle instead entered non-commissioned service with NOAA as RV Gloria Michelle in 1980 after undergoing extensive modifications and upgrades necessary for her to operate as a research vessel. NOAA subsequently sold Gloria Michelle's predecessor Rorqual at public auction.
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65- 75 black-faced spoonbill – who were chosen to be the symbol of Xuân Thủy National Park - are seen in the migratory season. The total number of black- faced spoonbill in the world are about 1000, it shows that 5% of the whole population of the species are living in Xuân Thủy National Park during the winter season. The park also provides a habitat for other rare animal species. These include species of otter, endangered cetaceans such as Chinese white dolphins, finless porpoise, and rorqual whales.2010\.
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The minke whale , or lesser rorqual, is a species complex of baleen whale. The two species of minke whale are the common (or northern) minke whale and the Antarctic (or southern) minke whale. The minke whale was first described by the Danish naturalist Otto Fabricius in 1780, who assumed it must be an already known species and assigned his specimen to Balaena rostrata, a name given to the northern bottlenose whale by Otto Friedrich Müller in 1776.World Register of Marine Species, accessed 30 May 2017.
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These were rated at , and drove two shafts, giving a speed of on the surface and submerged. Eight 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes were fitted; six in the bow, and two in the stern. Up to 30 torpedoes could be carried, with the initial outfit consisting of the unguided Mark 8 and the homing Mark 20 torpedoes. Rorqual was laid down at Vickers-Armstrongs' Barrow-in-Furness shipyard on 15 January 1955, was launched on 5 December 1956 and completed on 24 October 1958.
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Due to his ship having taken a beating in a heavy gale in these waters, he was forced to put into Lorient, France. While there, he ordered for "two rifles in pairs for killing [rorqual] whales," staying long enough in France to see them nearly completed, then leaving for home in a steamer, and, when finished, having the guns sent by way of England to the US. The following spring, he went out in the 175-ton brig William F. Safford to test his experimental whaling guns.Schmitt et al. (1980), p.67.
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The cetaceans are an infraorder of obligate aquatic mammals with about 89 living species, in two parvorders. The Odontoceti, or toothed whales, are about 70 species, including the dolphins, porpoises, beluga whale, narwhal, sperm whale, and beaked whales. The Mysticeti, or baleen whales, have a filter-feeding system, are fifteen species in three families, and include the blue whale, right whales, bowhead whale, humpback whale rorqual, and gray whale. The wide range of body mass in cetaceans has a significant influence on the capacity for oxygen storage and use, which affects dive limits.
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Location of Aristotle Mountains on the Antarctic Peninsula. Mount Rorqual () is a peak between Starbuck and Stubb Glaciers in southeastern Aristotle Mountains, 5 nautical miles (9 km) west of Mount Queequeg, on the east side of Graham Land. The feature is rocky and precipitous, rises to 1,110 m and is separated from Cachalot Peak by a narrow ridge. The name is one of a group in the area applied by United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) that reflects a whaling theme, the Rorquals being a species of baleen whales.
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It also yielded several marine mammals: a rorqual, Acrophoca, the sperm whale Scaldicetus, and Odobenocetops. The Coquimbo Formation in Tongoy Bay and the Horcón Formation of the Valparaíso Basin also display diverse shark assemblages, including megalodon, the great white shark, Carcharodon plicatilis, the shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus), Pristiophorus sawsharks, the smalltooth sand tiger, Carcharhinus sharks, the school shark (Galeorhinus galeus), the copper shark (Carcharhinus brachyurus), and the bluntnose sixgill shark (Hexanchus griseus). Several penguin species are known from all three of these formations, such as ancient banded penguins (Spheniscus spp.).
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Cetaceans () (from , from ) are aquatic mammals constituting the infraorder Cetacea. There are around 89 living species, which are divided into two parvorders. The first is the Odontoceti, the toothed whales, which consist of around 70 species, including the dolphin (which includes killer whales), porpoise, beluga whale, narwhal, sperm whale, and beaked whale. The second is the Mysticeti, the baleen (from ) whales, which have a filter-feeder system, and consist of fifteen species divided into three families, and include the blue whale, right whale, bowhead whale, rorqual, and gray whale.
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A number of 18th century authorsE.g. ; ; described the gray whale as Balaena gibbosa, the "whale with six bosses", apparently based on a brief note by : The gray whale was first described as a distinct species by based on a subfossil found in the brackish Baltic Sea, apparently a specimen from the now extinct north Atlantic population. Lilljeborg, however, identified it as "Balaenoptera robusta", a species of rorqual. realized that the rib and scapula of the specimen was different from those of any known rorquals, and therefore erected a new genus for it, Eschrichtius.
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Newly hatched olive ridley turtles head for the ocean Crocodiles are rare and inhabit only the backwaters of the Indus, the eastern Nara channel. Some population of marsh crocodiles can be very easily seen in the waters of Haleji Lake near Karachi. Besides a large variety of marine fish, the plumbeous dolphin, the beaked dolphin, rorqual or blue whale and a variety of skates frequent the seas along the Sindh's coast. The pallo (sable fish), though a marine fish, ascends the Indus annually from February to April to spawn.
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The whale looked overall similar to a rorqual, long with an elongated body, but the most notable difference was the presence of two large dorsal fins about apart. Other unusual features include the presence of two long sickle-shaped flippers and a lack of throat pleats. Another report of a two finned whale of roughly the same size was recorded from the ship Lily off the coast of Scotland the following year. In 1983 between Corsica and the French mainland, French zoologist Jacques Maigret sighted a similar looking creature.
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Molecular evidence has suggested that common and pygmy hippopotamus, extant members of the family Hippopotamidae, are the closest living relatives to the order Cetacea. This monophyletic clade is nested in Cetartiodactyla, which includes the even-toed ungulates. Whole genome sequencing of blue whales and other rorqual species suggests that blue whales are most closely related to sei whales with grey whales as a sister group, which is curious given the most common hybrids are with fin whales. This study also found significant gene flow between minke whales and the ancestors of the blue and sei whale.
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In the 1940 Walt Disney film Pinocchio, the Dogfish (named Monstro, Portuguese and in archaic Italian for 'monster') is portrayed as a terrible giant whale with massive jaws, both of which have sharp teeth, and a grooved underside like a rorqual. He is first mentioned in a message from the Blue Fairy about Geppetto, who, sailing to find Pinocchio, has been swallowed by him. They search for him, but are frustrated by the fear the various nekton display at the mention of his name. After finally discovering him sleeping, he suddenly awakens and swallows Pinocchio, who discovers Geppetto in Monstro's throat.
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Modifications to signals in these tissues likely contributed to the origin of an early form of hyperphalangy in fully aquatic cetaceans about 35 million years ago. The process continued over time, and a very derived form of hyperphalangy, with six or more phalanges per digit, evolved convergently in rorqual whales and oceanic dolphins, and was likely associated with another wave of signaling within the interdigital tissues. Although toothed cetaceans have five digits, most baleen whales have four digits and even lack a metacarpal. In the latter (mysticetes), the first digit ray may have been lost as late as 14 million years ago.
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On 21 February 1819, a 32-ft whale stranded near Grömitz, in Schleswig-Holstein. The Swedish-born German naturalist Karl Rudolphi initially identified it as Balaena rostrata (=Balaenoptera acutorostrata). In 1823, the French naturalist Georges Cuvier described and figured Rudolphi's specimen under the name "rorqual du Nord". In 1828, Rene Lesson translated this term into Balaenoptera borealis, basing his designation partly on Cuvier's description of Rudolphi's specimen and partly on a 54-ft female that had stranded on the coast of France the previous year (this was later identified as a juvenile fin whale, Balaenoptera physalus).
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The Antarctic minke whale or southern minke whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) is a species of minke whale within the suborder of baleen whales. It is the second smallest rorqual after the common minke whale and the third smallest baleen whale. Although first scientifically described in the mid-19th century, it was not recognized as a distinct species until the 1990s. Once ignored by the whaling industry due to its small size and low oil yield, the Antarctic minke was able to avoid the fate of other baleen whales and maintained a large population into the 21st century, numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
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Release date: 15 November 2016 Ascension introduced Clone States, giving the game a freemium model. Two clone states (Alpha and Omega) were created with Alpha clones being able to play for free while Omega clones would use the same subscription model as before. Ascension also saw the addition of more Upwell structures with an industrial focus called 'Engineering Complexes'. Ascension saw a multitude of other changes such as an improved new player experience (NPE), a new fleet system involving Command Bursts, the Fitting Simulator, balances to the Rorqual and Tactical Destroyers as well as a few graphics and UI changes.
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Thalassocnus fossils have been found in Peru and Chile, an area which has been a desert since the Middle Miocene. The Pisco Formation of Peru is known for its wide assemblage of marine vertebrates. Several whales are known, most commonly the mid-sized cetotheriid baleen whales; other whales found are the rorqual baleen whale Balaenoptera siberi, the beaked whale Messapicetus gregarius, the pontoporiid dolphin Brachydelphis mazeasi, some oceanic dolphins, the tusked dolphin Odobenocetops, and the macroraptorial sperm whales Acrophyseter and Livyatan. Other vertebrates include the seals Acrophoca and Hadrokirus, sea turtles such as Pacifichelys urbinai, the crocodile Piscogavialis, cormorants, petrels, and boobies (Sula spp.).
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The scientific description of this whale was made in Nature in 2003 by three Japanese scientists. They determined the existence of the species by analysing the morphology and mitochondrial DNA of nine individuals – eight caught by Japanese research vessels in the late 1970s in the Indo-Pacific and an adult female collected in 1998 from Tsunoshima, an island in the Sea of Japan. Later, abundant genetic evidence confirmed Omura's whale as a valid species and revealed it to be an early offshoot from the rorqual lineage, diverging much earlier than Bryde's and sei whales. It is perhaps more closely related to its larger relative, the blue whale.
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The genus name, Balaenoptera, means winged whale while the species name, musculus, could mean “muscle” or a diminutive form of “mouse”, potentially a clever pun by Carl Linnaeus, who named the species in Systema Naturae. One of the first published descriptions of a blue whale comes from Robert Sibbald’s Phalainologia Nova, after Sibbald found a stranded whale in the estuary of the Firth of Forth in 1692. The name ‘blue whale’ was derived from the Norwegian ‘blåhval’, coined by Svend Foyn shortly after he had perfected the harpoon gun. The Norwegian scientist G.O. Sars adopted it as the common name in 1874. Blue whales were referred to as ‘Sibbald’s rorqual’, after Robert Sibbald, who first described the species.
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Initially attempting to rejoin human civilization, the Godwhale (named Rorqual Maru or 'Whale Ship' in Japanese), along with its class six companion cyber, Iron Trilobite, eventually teams up with a genetically modified clone of Larry, ARNOLD (Augmented Renal Nucleus of Larry Dever) Larry himself, and an assortment of misfits and refugees from the Hive. Together they set out to try to find out what mysteriously brings the marine biota back to the previously sterile oceans, while a tiny group from the Hive, the outcasts, and their cyber deities survive and thrive in the face of incredible bungling by the 'Class One' computer that manages humanity and the various castes of 'Nebish' humans brought into the fight.
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Built as a commercial fishing vessel, Gloria Michelle offered many features lacking aboard her predecessor Rorqual. Configured as a stern trawler, she had a larger deck area suitable for research work, a refrigerated fish hold, and a diesel engine offering twice the horsepower of Rorqual's powerplant. Since NOAA acquired her in 1979, Gloria Michelle has undergone extensive modifications and upgrades - including the conversion of her refrigerated fish hold into space for berthing, a laboratory, and a septic system - and now only her hull is original; among equipment NOAA installed aboard her are a winch and an articulated crane for handling and recovering equipment. Her hull is painted deep blue, and her deckhouse is white.
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The use of grenade-tipped harpoons has greatly improved the effectiveness of whaling, allowing whales to be killed often instantaneously as compared to the previous method in which whales bled to death, which took a long time and left the whale to thrash around in its death throes. These harpoons inject air into the carcass to keep the heavier rorqual whales hunted today from sinking. However, the harpoon-cannon is still criticized for its cruelty as not all whales are killed instantly; death can take from minutes to an hour. Japan is currently the only country that engages in whaling in the Antarctic, which is now under the protection of the International Whaling Commission as the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
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In October, the submarines Parthian and Clyde from Gibraltar and Rorqual, in two trips from Beirut in the eastern Mediterranean, carried aircraft fuel, food, oils and torpedoes to Malta; Operation Train delivered 27 Supermarine Spitfire fighters to Malta (28–30 October). From 1 to 3 November, Parthian and Clyde delivered more stores and two attempts were made to get unescorted ships to Malta by ruse. Empire Patrol departed Alexandria on 1 November, loaded with fuel and food, escorted by to destroyers, to be disguised as a Turkish ship when east of Cyprus, then under an Italian flag when heading for Malta. Around noon on 2 November, when sailing alone, a Dornier Do 217 bomber circled the ship, a submarine periscope was seen and the commander ordered a return to Famagusta.
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In 1999 and 2000, an unidentified species of rorqual was repeatedly seen in the waters of Komodo National Park. They were small (most estimated to be only in length) with asymmetrical coloration similar to the fin whale, only had a single prominent ridge on the rostrum, and an extremely hooked dorsal fin. At first, they were tentatively identified as a "pygmy or regionally distinct" form of Bryde's whale, which was confirmed when one was photographed and biopsied in October 2000 and its tissue sample sent to the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California. There, its DNA was analyzed and found to be a complete match with a "pygmy Bryde's" sample obtained from the Philippines – later, however, it was discovered samples from the Philippines corresponded to B. omurai and not B. edeni.
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Skeleton The gray whale is traditionally placed as the only living species in its genus and family, Eschrichtius and Eschrichtiidae,The Paleobiology Database Eschrichtiidae entry accessed on 26 December 2010 but an extinct species was discovered and placed in the genus in 2017, the Akishima whale (E. akishimaensis). Some recent DNA analyses have suggested that certain rorquals of the family Balaenopteridae, such as the humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, and fin whale, Balaenoptera physalus, are more closely related to the gray whale than they are to some other rorquals, such as the minke whales. But other recent studies place gray whales as being outside the rorqual clade, but as the closest relatives to the rorquals. John Edward Gray placed it in its own genus in 1865, naming it in honour of physician and zoologist Daniel Frederik Eschricht.
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The flotilla was initially composed of U Class submarines including , , , , , , , , , , HMS P38 and HMS Ursula (N59) together with and of the Polish Navy The flotilla's base in Malta was the ancient fort on Manoel Island, in the Marsamxett Harbour opposite Sliema; this shore base was called HMS Talbot. The submarine base at Manoel Island was a priority target for Axis aerial attacks and was heavily bombed in 1942 which forced a temporary withdrawal of the flotilla from Malta. HMS Rorqual and Thunderbolt mooring up at Malta's submarine base in 1943 The flotilla never numbered more than 12 submarines, but this small force between January 1941 and December 1942, sank 412,575 tons of Axis shipping. On 24 May 1941 while assigned to the flotilla HMS Upholder attacked a convoy off the coast of Sicily and sank the 18,000 ton liner Conte Rosso.
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Their features became adapted for living in the marine environment. Major anatomical changes included their hearing set-up that channeled vibrations from the jaw to the earbone (Ambulocetus 49 mya), a streamlined body and the growth of flukes on the tail (Protocetus 43 mya), the migration of the nostrils toward the top of the cranium (blowholes), and the modification of the forelimbs into flippers (Basilosaurus 35 mya), and the shrinking and eventual disappearance of the hind limbs (the first odontocetes and mysticetes 34 mya). Whale morphology shows a number of examples of convergent evolution, the most obvious being the streamlined fish-like body shape. Other examples include the use of echolocation for hunting in low light conditions — which is the same hearing adaptation used by bats — and, in the rorqual whales, jaw adaptations, similar to those found in pelicans, that enable engulfment feeding.
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The Italian battery on Mt. Patella was able to shoot down eight bombers by taking advantage of this weak point. Kalimnos had fallen to the Germans on 7 September, and three days later the batteries of Leros had started firing on that island. This continuous firing, along with the constant air strikes, wore the guns, and seriously depleted the ammunition reserves; the local command asked for more ammunitions, and the destroyer Artigliere and Velite were sent from Taranto, but most of their cargo of ammunition was unloaded during their stop in Alexandria, so only a minimal part of them was eventually delivered to Leros. In the last part of October, Italian and British submarines made several supply runs to Leros: HMS Rorqual (three), HMS Severn (three), the Italian submarines Zoea (two), Atropo (one), Filippo Corridoni (one) and Ciro Menotti (one); overall, the submarines brought to Leros 17 men, 225 tons of supplies, twelve 40 mm Bofors guns, and one jeep.
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The Diesel Shipbuilding Company built Gloria Michelle at Jacksonville, Florida, in 1974 as a steel-hulled, diesel-powered commercial shrimp boat for use in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1979, the United States Customs Service seized Gloria Michelle after discovering 16 short tons (14.25 long tons; 14.5 metric tons/tonnes) of marijuana in her fish hold, at the time the largest seizure of illegal drugs in the history of Mississippi. After the conclusion of the trial of the people involved in smuggling the marijuana, Gloria Michelle was laid up in a bayou near Biloxi, Mississippi, to await her fate.nefsc.noaa.gov "R/V Gloria Michelle: NEFSC Research Vessel Has Colorful History" At about the same time, the Conservation Engineering Group at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) at NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service Gloucester Laboratory in Gloucester, Massachusetts, was looking for a replacement for RV Rorqual, a 40-year-old former United States Army harbor tug the NEFSC used to support its fisheries science activities and its work designing and testing commercial fishing gear.
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