This splendid infographic by Justin Stuart summarises the development of modern dolphins from earlier land mammals, and answers some great questions such as why dolphins have the genes to smell things on land, but not in the water.
For many years Naturenet has celebrated an early internet ‘viral video’, the famous Oregon exploding whale. It was only recently that The Ranger discovered that this remarkable event happened as long ago as 1970 – on 12th November 1970, to be exact, 36 years ago today.
It’s a tribute to the power of the internet that this bizarre event is so well known, so long after it occurred: largely because it happened to have been recorded on video. If you have either never seen the exploding whale video, or not seen it for a while, The Ranger strongly recommends you go and have a look – it’s been cleaned up and remastered and is now even more spectacularly daft and entertaining. Don’t worry – it’s not particularly gory either. At the risk of spoiling the surprise somewhat, let’s say that the explosion did not quite have the desired effect.