The Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Peter Girguis, together with other scientists have found that the gut microbiome of baleen species such as right whales share characteristics with both cows and meat eating predators. Girguis said, “What our paper suggests is the whale foregut is much like a cow’s gut, and we posit that chitin-degrading anaerobic microbial community thrives in there, breaking down the material and making it available to the whale.” Ultimately, the study addresses questions that reach far beyond the guts of whales, which we can call phylogenetic inertia. Girguis hypothesized that a whale’s microbiome would look similar to carnivorous mammals like lions and tiger, additionally, that the foregut was just vestigial.
