Scientist Katherina Petrou notes that the Whale Dreaming story of the Yuin people, where a Whale comes from the sea and onto land to give a message to people, reflects how Western scientists understand the evolution of the whale: The whale came from the sea, evolved on land into an almost wolf-like organism and eventually became amphibious and went back into the ocean to become the whales we see today. All mammals evolved from the ocean to be air-breathing organisms.