New Scientist
Image: Guarda La`
The largest brains ever to have evolved belong to whales. Now we have discovered that the marine mammals gained their big brains size in the same way we did – through massive expansion of two particular brain regions, fuelled perhaps through changes in diet.
Amandine Muller at the University of Cambridge and Stephen Montgomery at the University of Bristol, UK, looked at brain size data from 18 species of whale and dolphin, as well as from 124 different land animals including 43 species of primate. With few exceptions, the whales, dolphins and primates all seem to have gained large brains through dramatic growth of the same two brain regions: the cerebellum and neocortex. Both regions are important for cognitive functions such as attention, and for controlling the movement of the body. Read more on newscientist.com…
