Ancient Whales and How Their Skulls Affected Directional Hearing

Whale skulls—at least those of toothed whales—are a little twisted. This asymmetry probably helps them decipher echolocation signals as they identify suitable prey. Baleen whales have symmetrical skulls and do not echolocate. Since Darwin, evolutionists have insisted that whales, because they are mammals, must have evolved from land mammals. Land mammals have symmetrical skulls, so evolutionists have puzzled over how the whale skulls got twisted.

The currently accepted final ancestor in the whale evolutionary scenario, the Basilosaurus, is said to have evolved into both toothed and baleen varieties.1 CT scans of Basilosaurus skulls have revealed that they might be a little twisted too. The slight deviation from the midline was thought initially to be a result of distortion during the fossilization process, but four of the six skulls examined were significantly distorted, so researchers from the University of Michigan think the finding is genuine.

Because the Basilosaurus skull also has features commonly associated with hearing, the researchers believe these features evolved together.

Because the Basilosaurus skull also has features commonly associated with hearing, the researchers believe these features evolved together. As the authors of the article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences state, “We conclude that directional asymmetry in archaeocetes [extinct whales] is related to hearing.” They add that these extinct creatures lack bony “evidence of the specialized organs required to produce high-frequency sound,” and therefore, “The sounds they heard likely came from prey that produced sounds at frequencies that archaeocetes could detect and process.”2

“This shows that asymmetry existed much earlier than previously thought—before the baleen whales and toothed whales split,” researcher Julie Fahlke said. “This means that the earliest baleen whales must have had asymmetrical skulls, which later became symmetrical.” The authors assert, “Asymmetry and much of the sonic-frequency range of directional hearing were lost in Oligocene mysticetes [baleen whales] during the shift to low-frequency hearing and bulk-straining predation.”3

This interpretation of their findings is based on the presupposition that all these features evolved. The isolated evolution of skull asymmetry makes no sense if it offers no survival advantage. The claim that asymmetry evolved in concert with other features—the better to hear prey with—lends an air of credibility to the story. However, such stories are spawned by what you already believe. There are no transitional forms to show these features partially developed.

The finding of skull asymmetry in association with other characteristics associated with good hearing makes perfect sense from a creationist perspective. We understand that each creature created in the Creation Week was fully equipped for life and that different created kinds were endowed with different combinations of equipage.

It is possible that the extinct Basilosaurus was of the same created kind as today’s toothed whales, or perhaps it was a created kind that has become extinct. But there is no reason to assume that a common ancestor had to acquire baleen, lose teeth, lose echolocating ability, and even lose skull asymmetry in order to become today’s baleen whales, unless, of course, one is committed to the just-so-story that it simply must be so. If the baleen whale did not descend from a primitive whale forebear, then it had no skull asymmetry to lose.