Whales belong in the ocean, right? That may be true today, but cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) actually descended from four legged mammals that once lived on land. New research published in Current Biology reports the discovery in Peru of an entirely new species of ancestral whale that straddled land and sea, providing insight into the weird evolutionary journey of our mammalian friends.
We might think of them as smooth, two-flippered ocean swimmers that struggle to even survive the Thames, but whales originated more than 50m years ago from artiodactyls – land-dwelling, hooved mammals.
There is hope that one day we too may return to our mother ocean.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Saturday April 06 2019, @04:17AM (2 children)
TFA is interesting. Worth reading -- it's pretty short.
What's more, DNA analysis has shown that the closest *living* relative of the whale is the hippopotamus [sciencedaily.com].
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday April 07 2019, @02:03AM (1 child)
Two-legged whales [alamy.com] still roam the land, you see them all over the place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @02:21AM
If you're going to go there*, at least make it convincing [tumblr.com].
*And be glad I linked what I did, instead of going with this [motherless.com] [NSFW]