TY - JOUR AU - Coombs, Ellen J. AU - Clavel, Julien AU - Park, Travis AU - Churchill, Morgan AU - Goswami, Anjali PY - 2020 DA - 2020/07/10 TI - Wonky whales: the evolution of cranial asymmetry in cetaceans JO - BMC Biology SP - 86 VL - 18 IS - 1 AB - Unlike most mammals, toothed whale (Odontoceti) skulls lack symmetry in the nasal and facial (nasofacial) region. This asymmetry is hypothesised to relate to echolocation, which may have evolved in the earliest diverging odontocetes. Early cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) such as archaeocetes, namely the protocetids and basilosaurids, have asymmetric rostra, but it is unclear when nasofacial asymmetry evolved during the transition from archaeocetes to modern whales. We used three-dimensional geometric morphometrics and phylogenetic comparative methods to reconstruct the evolution of asymmetry in the skulls of 162 living and extinct cetaceans over 50 million years. SN - 1741-7007 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-020-00805-4 DO - 10.1186/s12915-020-00805-4 ID - Coombs2020 ER -