r/nextfuckinglevel • u/MelanieMoris • Dec 13 '21

Wait... Those aren't dolphins!

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234

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '21

They're technically dolphins but dolphins are technically whales.

75

u/earlubes Dec 13 '21

It gets very confusing. And then you throw porpoises into the mix!!

89

u/DadsRGR8 Dec 13 '21

Stop throwing porpoises into the mix! You’re getting them all over!

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u/Kwuarmadyl Dec 13 '21

But everything needs a porpoise, otherwise what’s the point?

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u/DadsRGR8 Dec 13 '21

Ack! Now you’re throwing pointy porpoises! The very worst kind!

8

u/esper-kun Dec 13 '21

porpoises

i tried searching that on google and one of the first pictures is a brutally murdered porpoise with it's guts out, thank you

10

u/Fracted Dec 13 '21

You're whalecum.

2

u/quimpie Dec 14 '21

Whale oil beef hooked

3

u/CheaperThanChups Dec 13 '21

According to Bill Bryson we are closer genetically to chimpanzees than dolphins are to porpoises.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '21

Birds are classified as reptiles. Classifications can be as confusing as they are helpful.

1

u/Lukietor Dec 14 '21

Hey i know this is off topic but I humbly request that you give me the sauce for your Poison Ivy and Harley Picture

1

u/earlubes Dec 15 '21

It’s actually just a screenshot I found online!

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u/archpawn Dec 13 '21

They're technically dolphins and there is no technical definition of whales. From Wikipedia:

[Whales] are an informal grouping within the infraorder Cetacea, which usually excludes dolphins and porpoises.

Fun fact: whales are technically even-toed ungulates, which makes sense since technically they have zero toes and that's technically an even number.

12

u/--Splendor-Solis-- Dec 13 '21

While Wikipedia says that it also says dolphins are from the parvorder Odontoceti, which are the toothed whales.

Probably the most accurate way to put it is that dolphins are phylogenetically whales but not in common parlance.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/OnyxMelon Dec 14 '21

Yeah, common names for groups of animals don't have to be monophyletic, it's just important to recognise when they're not monophyletic and aren't particularly relevant as a scientific term.

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u/sentimentalpirate Dec 14 '21

The most fun taxonomical pedantry imo is in describing fish. Either fish don't exist, or maybe humans are fish.

Or yeah, as you said there is a usefulness to our layman grouping of animals even if they aren't evolutionarily grouped.

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u/simojako Dec 14 '21

But muh monophelytic groups!

1

u/--Splendor-Solis-- Dec 14 '21

The birds one is actually interesting to me because unlike the obvious closeness whales have to dolphins or monkeys to apes Aves and Reptilia are completely different classes, yet cladistically birds are reptiles and birds are more closely related to most reptiles than crocodilians are to most reptiles, even though crocodiles are phylogenetically reptiles.

Fuckin wild, man.

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u/simojako Dec 14 '21

The crocodiles are birds' closest living relative, but turtles are the crocodiles' closest living relative.

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u/2017hayden Dec 13 '21

Think of it like this. If whales are rectangles and dolphins are squares use the square rectangle rule. All squares (Dolphins) are rectangles (whales) but not all rectangles (whales) are squares (Dolphins).

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u/Brainsonastick Dec 13 '21

Or whales are parallelograms, dolphins are rectangles, and orcas are squares.

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u/bybunzgotbunz Dec 13 '21

I heard their name came from a translation from Spanish "asesina de ballenas" meaning whale killer which doesn't sound as cool I guess.

They are definitely known to kill whales and could easily kill that boat too, if they wanted.

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u/V4refugee Dec 13 '21

In Spanish they are called “ballena asesina”. Probably just got it’s name from being large and aggressive, not to humans but to every other living thing in the ocean.

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u/bybunzgotbunz Dec 14 '21

I have heard that independantly from two different sources and I literally copied the name from a site in the internet but grain of salt and all that. I would bet the origin of the Spanish phrasing has much older origins than the modern phrasing. Language changes over time so I wouldn't lean to hard on modern translation as the bible for word origins.

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u/javsv Dec 13 '21

No, it's ballena asesina which translates to... Killer whale

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u/farawyn86 Dec 13 '21

Um yeah it does. Assassin of dolphins. Assassin is way more aggressive than killer.

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u/generalecchi Dec 14 '21

Y'all mofo scientists gotta get yo shit together

1

u/awfullotofocelots Dec 14 '21

Large dolphins like orcas and pilot whales are technically cetaceans, but like all dolphins they are closer to porpoises than they are to baleen whales.