Most of us know about blue whales, sperm whales, and dolphins (a type of specialized whale). But what about beaked whales, an elusive group that includes nearly a quarter of all living whale species? 

Like hippos, their closest living relatives, whales are descended from an ancestor that had four legs and walked on land, a transition explored in the upcoming exhibition Whales: Giants of the Deep, opening March 23.

This month, a team of international researchers led by the American Museum of Natural History and Stony Brook University determined in unprecedented detail what the earliest ancestor of placental mammals—the widely diverse group of animals ranging from whales to bats to humans—looked like.  The Museum is teaming up with WNYC’s Radiolab to sponsor a tournament to name this early ancestor. Want to enter? 

The word "whale" may bring to mind the image of a blue whale, the largest animal ever to have lived. But did you know that dolphins and porpoises are also specialized whales? Today, there about 80 species of living whales, or cetaceans. Among these marine mammals, there are two groups: baleen and toothed.

The dioramas in the Jill and Lewis Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals have always been splendid, but after more than a year of painstaking restoration, they look better than ever. A multi-video series documents their renovation. In these videos, Museum artists Stephen C. Quinn and Joianne Bittle Knight describe how the 3-D foregrounds and 2-D backgrounds of the dioramas were originally created.