Editing Porpoise (section)

===Research history===
{{See also|Cryptid whale|Whale#In myth, literature and art}}
{{Quote box|width=30%|align=right|quote=The tube in the head, through which this kind fish takes its breath and spitting water, located in front of the brain and ends outwardly in a simple hole, but inside it is divided by a downward bony septum, as if it were two nostrils; but underneath it opens up again in the mouth in a void.|source=–John Ray, 1671, the earliest description of cetacean airways}}

In [[Aristotle]]'s time, the 4th century BCE, porpoises were regarded as fish due to their superficial similarity. Aristotle, however, could already see many physiological and anatomical similarities with the terrestrial vertebrates, such as blood (circulation), lungs, uterus and fin anatomy.{{Citation needed|date=December 2019|reason=removed citation to predatory publisher content}}  His detailed descriptions were assimilated by the Romans, but mixed with a more accurate knowledge of the dolphins, as mentioned by [[Pliny the Elder]] in his "Natural history". In the art of this and subsequent periods, porpoises are portrayed with a long snout (typical of dolphins) and a high-arched head. The [[harbour porpoise]] was one of the most accessible species for early [[cetology|cetologists]], because it could be seen very close to land, inhabiting shallow coastal areas of Europe. Much of the findings that apply to all cetaceans were first discovered in porpoises.<ref>{{cite book|author= Conrad Gesner|url=http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/AriHian.html|title=Historiae animalium |date=6 September 2008 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080906090248/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/AriHian.html |archive-date=6 September 2008 |access-date=4 September 2015}}</ref> One of the first anatomical descriptions of the airways of the whales on the basis of a harbor porpoise dates from 1671 by John Ray.<ref>{{cite journal|author=J. Ray|title=An account of the dissection of a porpess|journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London|volume=6|issue=69–80|year=1671|pages=2274–2279|bibcode = 1671RSPT....6.2274R|doi=10.1098/rstl.1671.0048|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Susanne Prahl|title=Studies for the construction of epicranialen airway when porpoise (Phocoena phocoena Linnaeus, 1758)|journal=Dissertation for the Doctoral Degree of the Department of Biology of the Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Natural Sciences at the University of Hamburg|year=2007|page=6}}</ref> It nevertheless referred to the porpoise as a fish, most likely not in the modern-day sense, where it refers to a zoological group, but the older reference as simply a creature of the sea (cf. for example ''star-fish'', ''cuttle-fish'', ''jelly-fish'' and ''whale-fish'').