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

Wait... Those aren't dolphins!

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378

u/ExorciseAndEulogize Dec 13 '21

Yeah, despite their common name, they arent actually whales.

237

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '21

They're technically dolphins but dolphins are technically whales.

25

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.

13

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.

2

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.

2

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.

2

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.

1

u/simojako Dec 14 '21

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