Killer Whale

A female orca, or killer whale, travels with her offspring in waters around the San Juan Islands in Washington State.

A humpback whale

A humpback whale leaps out of the water on the island of Maui in Hawaii. The number of endangered humpback whales in the North Pacific Ocean has dramatically increased to more than 18,000 according to a new study.

humpback whale

A humpback whale jumps out of the waters off Hawaii. Japan is dropping its much-criticized plan to kill protected humpback whales in the seas off Antarctica, a media report said. Commercial hunts of humpbacks have been banned worldwide since 1966.

Whales have evolved from raccoon-sized creature

A Franca Austral whale, also known as the Southern Right whale, performs a tail slap by slapping its tail flukes on the surface of the water just off the shore of Puerto Piramides June 26, 2007. In the search for a missing evolutionary link to modern whales, scientists have come up with an unlikely land cousin -- a raccoon-sized creature with the body of a small deer.

Tiny mammal was ancestor of cetaceans

The skeleton of a whale hangs in a cetaceans museum in Puerto Calero, Spain. A tiny deer-like mammal was the forerunner of whales, dolphins and porpoises, according to a study released by Nature, the weekly British science journal.

This handout artist rendering shows The 48 million year old ungulate Indohyus from India. Indohyus is a close relative of whales, and the structure of its bones and chemistry of its teeth indicate that it spent much time in water. In this reconstruction, it is seen diving in a stream, much like the modern African Mousedeer does when in danger.