Associate Professor Cheng-Hsiu Tsai from the Department of Life Science at National Taiwan University, in collaboration with James Goedert from the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, USA, and Robert Boessenecker from the Charleston Center for Paleontology, has discovered the oldest known baleen whale in the entire Northern Hemisphere. This new species has been named Fucaia humilis (the Modest Fuca Whale). The research article was officially published in the renowned international journal Current Biology in April 2024.
For a long time, the oldest baleen whales, dating back to the Eocene epoch, had only been found in the Southern Hemisphere (Antarctica and Peru). These discoveries, coinciding with the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current at the end of the Eocene, created an environment rich in plankton, which supported the origin and early evolution of the entire group of baleen whales (Mysticeti), including the largest vertebrate on Earth, the blue whale. The Southern Hemisphere has thus been considered the primary cradle for the origin and early evolution of baleen whales.
Through his recent collaborations and fieldwork in the United States, Prof. Tsai identified the fossils discovered in Washington State as the oldest known baleen whale in the Northern Hemisphere, dating back approximately 34.5 million years: Fucaia humilis. The Latin term "humilis" means humble, reflecting the previously little-known early evolutionary history of baleen whales in the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore, this species can be referred to as the Modest Fuca Whale in Chinese (with the common English name being the humble whale). Interestingly, the same region (Washington State) and time period also feature the world's oldest known kelp ecosystem. This suggests that the formation of kelp ecosystems in the Northern Hemisphere over 30 million years ago may have been a crucial site for the early evolution of baleen whales.
While the Southern Hemisphere's Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the Northern Hemisphere's kelp ecosystems were vastly different in their marine ecological environments and driving forces over 30 million years ago, the resulting baleen whale groups were also markedly different in size. At that time, Southern Hemisphere baleen whales could reach up to 10 meters in length, whereas the Modest Fuca Whale was less than 3 meters long. These findings clearly indicate that the early origins of baleen whales, leading to the evolution of the blue whale and other gigantic vertebrates, still hold many unresolved mysteries. Prof. Tsai continues his research across both hemispheres, seeking to unravel the evolutionary history and origins of early baleen whales, with the potential to solve one of life's great mysteries.
Full research article: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00308-7#%20
Source: https://www.ntu.edu.tw/spotlight/2024/2267_20240515.html