'Eve' and descendants shape global sperm whale population structure

Although sperm whales have not been driven to the brink of extinction as have some other whales, a new study has found a remarkable lack of diversity in the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA within the species. A pod of sperm whales off the coast of Mauritius  [Credit: Gabriel Barathieu/Flickr]In fact, the mitochondrial DNA from more than a thousand sperm whales examined during the past 15 years came from a single "Eve"...

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Via: The Archaeology News Network