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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday April 06 2019, @04:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the blow-hards dept.

Phys.org:

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.


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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Saturday April 06 2019, @06:50AM (1 child)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday April 06 2019, @06:50AM (#825308) Journal

    More and more data is coming in, that explains the Runaway1956. Behold!

    The ancient whales also had long toes that were most likely webbed, meaning they moved a lot like today's otters. That's probably how they crossed the Atlantic Ocean, researchers said. Today, a giant otter-type creature would have to swim a long way to migrate, but at that time in the Earth's history, the distance between Africa and South America was two times shorter and the currents were strong.

    And, they mocked me at the Soylentil Academy of the Sciences, when I suggested that Whales originated in Arkansas, just north of Texarkansas, where to this day land whales dwelll. But now we know, do we not? Large Americans, listening to Faux News, and harpooned by Russian operatives. Runaway! How could you be so easily used?

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 06 2019, @01:13PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 06 2019, @01:13PM (#825354) Journal

    You're a butthead, Ari. I clicked her to post that they must have found my mother-in-law, but you stole my thunder. +1 funny