{"id":22817,"date":"2010-06-30T21:26:24","date_gmt":"2010-06-30T21:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/a-toothy-predator-of-the-prehistoric-seas-meet-the-leviathan-whale-80beats\/"},"modified":"2010-06-30T21:26:24","modified_gmt":"2010-06-30T21:26:24","slug":"a-toothy-predator-of-the-prehistoric-seas-meet-the-leviathan-whale-80beats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/a-toothy-predator-of-the-prehistoric-seas-meet-the-leviathan-whale-80beats.php","title":{"rendered":"A Toothy Predator of the Prehistoric Seas: Meet the Leviathan Whale | 80beats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twelve million years ago, one sperm whale was king. Between 40 and 60 feet in length the beast scientists named Leviathan melvillei<\/em><\/em> wasn’t any bigger than today’s sperm whales, but look at those teeth!<\/p>

\"Leviathan_killing_whale\"<\/a><\/p>

As described in a paper<\/a> published in Nature<\/em> today, Olivier Lambert discovered the whale’s fossils in a Peruvian desert. The creature’s name says it all:<\/p>

[It] combines the Hebrew word ‘Livyatan’, which refers to large mythological sea monsters, with the name of American novelist Herman Melville, who penned Moby-Dick <\/span> — “one of my favourite sea books”, says lead author Olivier Lambert of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. [Nature News<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>

The prehistoric sperm whale may have eaten baleen whales, and its largest chompers are a foot long and some four inches wide. For all the details, check out Ed Yong’s post<\/a> on Not Exactly Rocket Science.<\/p>

Related content:
80beats: Lady Humpback Whales Make Friends & Meet up for Summer Reunions<\/a>
80beats: Whales vs. Navy: NOAA May Limit Sonar Tests, but Another Case Heads to Court<\/a>
80beats: Primitive Proto-Whales May Have Clambered Ashore to Give Birth<\/a>
80beats: Update: International Whaling Deal Falls Apart<\/a>
80beats: Is the Whaling Ban Really the Best Way to Save the Whales?<\/a><\/p>

Image: Nature<\/em><\/p>

<\/a>
<\/a><\/p>

<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/div>

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twelve million years ago, one sperm whale was king. Between 40 and 60 feet in length the beast scientists named Leviathan melvillei wasn’t any bigger than today’s sperm whales, but look at those teeth!As described in a paper published in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}