FACTOID #151: The five countries with the highest coffee consumption are also the five countries whose citizens trust one another the most. Coincidence? Probably.
Mammals evolved on land, and their spines are optimized for running on all four legs, allowing for up and down but only little sideways motion. Marine mammals therefore typically swim by moving their spine up and down, while fish normally swim by moving their spine sideways.
All mammals have hair. The marine mammals, with the exception of polar bears and otters, have lost most of their hair, thus decreasing water resistance. They rely on insulation by a layer of fat instead. Since the different groups of marine mammals originate from different ancestors, this is a case of convergent evolution.
Note that the polar bear spends a large proportion of its time in a marine environment, albeit a frozen one. When it does swim in the open sea; it is extremely proficient and can cover up to 60km in a day. For these reasons, scientists regard it as a marine mammal.
Marinemammal scientists try to understand these animals' genetic, systematic, and evolutionary relationships; population structure; community dynamics; anatomy and physiology; behavior and sensory abilities; parasites and diseases; geographic and microhabitat distributions; ecology; management; and conservation.
Marinemammal scientists are hired because of their skills as scientists, not because they like or want to work with marinemammals.
Marinemammal studies often involve long, hard, soggy, sunburned days at sea, countless hours in a laboratory, extensive work on computers, hard labor such as hauling buckets of fish to feed animals, hours of cleanup, numerous reports, tedious grant applications and permit applications.
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