Posted on 01/25/2005 8:30:29 AM PST by Pharmboy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A second look at some 40-million-year-old fossils provides a "missing link" to suggest that the closest living relative of whales is the hippo, a group of scientists said on Monday.
Although the hippopotamus does not seem a likely relative of whales, genetic study has suggested they are close. Now, a team at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Poitiers in France and the University of N'djamena in Chad say they have found more evidence in the fossil record.
"The problem with hippos is, if you look at the general shape of the animal it could be related to horses, as the ancient Greeks thought, or pigs, as modern scientists thought," researcher Jean-Renaud Boisserie said in a statement.
In Greek the name hippopotamus means "river horse."
"But cetaceans -- whales, porpoises and dolphins -- don't look anything like hippos. There is a 40-million-year gap between fossils of early cetaceans and early hippos," Boisserie added.
The earliest cetacean fossils date back 53 million years while the first hippopotamus fossils date to about 16 million years.
Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Boisserie and colleagues propose a new theory that whales and hippos had a common water-loving ancestor that lived 50 to 60 million years ago.
From it evolved two groups -- the early cetaceans, which gradually moved into the water full-time, and a large and diverse group of pig-like animals called anthracotheres.
These animals flourished, forming 37 distinct genera across the world before dying out and leaving just one descendant 2.5 million years ago -- the hippopotamus.
The theory would class whales, dolphins and porpoises with cloven-hoofed mammals such as cattle, pigs, and camels.
Boisserie argues that some of the older, time-tested ways of classifying animals by body shape and even teeth are not always the most accurate.
Innaresting nonetheless.
Ping!
Darwin on Dope
No, wait. Not enough bandwidth.
I'm trying to decide if Ted Kennedy would be classified as a whale or a hippo. I'd have to go with the hippo. He can go from water to land without suffering any adverse effects and a whale can't.
Can't wait to see the pics of Hillary, Thereza, Albright, Kennedy, and all the gang.
``I'm trying to decide if Ted Kennedy would be classified as a whale or a hippo. I'd have to go with the hippo. He can go from water to land without suffering any adverse effects and a whale can't.``
True, but, like a whale having to keep its skin moist continuously, Teddy K. has to keep all his tissues soaked in hooch.
The following article describes just one of many difficulties in evolving from land animals to a whale.
And Reuters can't fill in the gaps?
Gee.
The last statement by the researcher is unnerving...If previous methods of looking at fossil relationships using
teeth, bones, etc are not always good as in this case, then
in what case are they good? Can a paleontologist ever look
at skeletal remains alone and say that it looks like
"organism A is a descendant of organism B"?
What does that type of information do to the myriads of
"trees of life" formerly constructed based on skeletal
remains?
I just wonder how Noah got hippos on the Ark.
If you're going to take Genesis litterally, then you've got to swallow the whole shebang.
That's one of the amazing things about Evolution. That the theory originated centuries ago, but that recent DNA studies confirm it, and add to it's precision.
The old method of physical classification of species is still valuable, but nothing is perfect.
Should I ping the list to this thread? We've already got a lot of threads cooking.
You are evil. And I do not mean that in a good way.
I now must go wash my brain with bleach to remove that image
Too many pots spoil the cook. Or something.
Heh -- good match...
Strangely enough, my first thought was of Michael Moore as well.
Go ahead and ping the list.
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