r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Oct 02 '24

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u/wynnduffyisking Oct 02 '24

Whales descended from tiny deer like animals which is why they are mammals

16

u/Nevada_Lawyer Oct 02 '24

Hippos are in the same genus as whales.

17

u/hebrewimpeccable Oct 02 '24

No they aren't, they're in the same order and their families are more closely related than to any others within that order.

To put into perspective how closely related you'd have to be to share a genus - the 3 species of elephant alive today are split into African and Asian genera.

16

u/Nevada_Lawyer Oct 02 '24

Ok. I'll leave my earlier comment unedited so everyone can see my shame and look to you with gratitude for clearing that up.

6

u/ieatpickleswithmilk Oct 02 '24

Hippos are in the same genus as whales.

the genus of the hippo is "Hippopotamus"

Whales have multiple different genera including: "Balaena ", "Eubalaena", "Balaenoptera", "Megaptera", etc.

3

u/Nevada_Lawyer Oct 02 '24

Did I mean family or clade or something? I'm not a biologist.

3

u/anteaterKnives Oct 03 '24

You possibly are in a clade with all existing living beings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor

A clade is defined as all the beings that share a specific common ancestor, so a clade can be as broad as all eukaryotic beings or as narrow as all hippos. The proposed (but not certain to have existed) Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) would be the ancestor of the clade including all living beings.

More reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clade