Blue whale genome reveals the animals’ extraordinary evolutionary history
These insights now allow tracking the evolutionary history of the worlds’ largest animal and its relatives in unprecedented detail. Surprisingly, the genomes show that rorquals have been hybridizing during their evolutionary history. In addition, rorquals seem to have separated into different species in the absence of geographical barriers. This phenomenon, called sympatric speciation, is very rare in animals. The study has just been published in Science Advances.
https://www.heritagedaily.com/2018/04/118741/118741