Whale Ancestor “Deer-like”
If fundamentalist humans are upset about the evolutionary likelihood that humans and apes are descendent from a common ancestor, imagine how fundamentalist whales might feel after this news. :-D According to paleontologists, the earliest ancestral relative of modern whales has been discovered in Kashmir, India. The fossil bears very little resemblance to whales however.
The animal has been described as "deer-like", "raccoon sized", and land-based with a penchant for escaping to the water to avoid predators. Who could have imagined that a two-foot long furry land dweller could have evolved into a giant sea creature? Science is pretty cool, eh? Clues to the link between this animal and modern whales is found in its skull and ear structures as well as its bone and tooth structure.
The research findings are published in full in Nature but the BBC has been nice enough to provide a synopsis for us common folk.
Tags: dumb news, evolution, whale ancestor, paleontology, fun science
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POSTED IN: Dumb Animals, Dumb Pictures, Dumb Science, Just Weird
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