50 Million Years of Whales

Whale evolution is a source of endless fascination to me, partly due to how weird it is that a group of hoofed mammals became the flippered friends we know today, and partly due to just how thorough of a fossil record we have for this transition. I’ve previously reviewed a book called When the Whales Walked, though despite its title, it acts as more of a general introduction to evolution rather than a specific deep dive (pun intended) into the history of whales themselves.

That brings us to today’s book under review: 50 Million Years of Whales! This is another one by favorite of the blog, author/illustrator Ted Rechlin of Rextooth Studios, who also created Jurassic, SUE, and Sharks: A 400 Million Year Journey. The format is actually fairly similar to the latter, in how it follows the evolutionary history of its subject, from early ancestors up to the modern day (including modern threats from human activity).

Rechlin’s bold art style really grabs the reader’s attention, as always. One might think that with the generally muted colors of cetaceans might limit how flashy the illustrations could be, but Rechlin has a way of creating creative, dynamic scenes that pop off the page regardless of the subject. On a depressingly effective note, this extends to his depiction of factory whaling ships and the deafening impact of submarine sonar, both of which powerfully convey the sickening and deadly threat they pose to modern whales.

One small error did stand out to me, however, partially because of how early it appears in the book. (I might have missed it otherwise.) After the page depicting the mesonychid chasing the Indohyus, they are both described as ancestral to artiodactyls, though they are in fact deeply nested within the group, and not particularly close to the origins of Artiodactyla. They ARE close to beginnings of the cetaceans WITHIN artiodactyls, however, which may have been what the text was intended to convey.

To end on a positive note, I found myself quietly captivated by one of the final pages of the book. A male Ambulocetus sits on the shore, singing to attract a mate. While I can’t help imagining it as more of a gurgling, hippopotamus-style bellow, this scene nevertheless feels like a tender and poignant connection to the whale songs we are familiar with today. All whales are highly communicative, and while this suggests we should expect it to extend back to there ancestors, the thought had honestly never occurred to me before. It makes these weird, almost alien creatures seem so much more familiar to imagine them engaged in such an activity, and brings them to life in a way I have never experienced in other paleoart featuring proto-cetaceans.

I highly recommend 50 Million Years of Whales. Even more so than When the Whales Walked, it gives readers a broad view of whale evolution, and presents it in a dynamic, highly engaging way. As with most of Ted Rechlin’s other work, I happily give this my Stomp of Approval, and I recommend you check out his website Rextooth Studios for more of his excellent graphic novels. (He also happens to be the publisher for Mammoth is Mopey and Did You Know Dino? Hell Creek, which is all the more reason to visit!)