Dear colleagues, please find below the abstract and link to our recently published, open access paper on suction feeding and the evolution of baleen-assisted filter feeding in whales: Marx, F. G., Hocking, D. P., Park, T., Ziegler, T., Evans, A.R. and Fitzgerald, E.M.G. 2016. Suction feeding preceded filtering in baleen whale evolution. Memoirs of Museum Victoria 75: 71-82 Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311107615_Suction_feeding_preceded_... Abstract: The origin of baleen, the key adaptation of modern whales (Mysticeti), marks a profound yet poorly understood transition in vertebrate evolution, triggering the rise of the largest animals on Earth. Baleen is thought to have appeared in archaic tooth-bearing mysticetes during a transitional phase that combined raptorial feeding with incipient bulk filtering. Here we show that tooth wear in a new Late Oligocene mysticete belonging to the putatively transitional family Aetiocetidae is inconsistent with the presence of baleen, and instead indicative of suction feeding. Our findings suggest that baleen arose much closer to the origin of toothless mysticete whales than previously thought. In addition, they suggest an entirely new evolutionary scenario in which the transition from raptorial to baleen-assisted filter feeding was mediated by suction, thereby avoiding the problem of functional interference between teeth and the baleen rack. Kind regards, Felix Marx _____________________________ *Felix G. Marx* PhD Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow *Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium *Monash University, Melbourne, Australia *Museum Victoria, Melbourne, Australia Address: School of Biological Sciences, Monash University 18 Innovation Walk, VIC 3800, Australia Tel. +61 (0)3 9905 1190 (Monash University) or +61 (0)3 8341 7346 (Museum Victoria)