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Exceptional whale fossil found in Egyptian desert
Reuters Wire ^
| 18 April 2005
| Staff
Posted on 04/20/2005 10:09:49 AM PDT by balrog666
CAIRO (Reuters) - An American palaeontologist and a team of Egyptians have found the most nearly complete fossilised skeleton of the primitive whale Basilosaurus isis in Egypt's Western Desert, a university spokesman said on Monday.
Philip Gingerich of the University of Michigan excavated the well-preserved skeleton, which is about 40 million years old, in a desert valley known as Wadi Hitan (the Valley of the Whales) southwest of Cairo, spokesman Karl Bates told Reuters.
"His feeling is that it's the most complete -- the whole skeleton from stem to stern," said Bates.
The skeleton, which is 18 metres (50 feet) long, could throw light on why there are so many fossilised remains of whales and other ancient sea animals in Wadi Hitan and possibly how the extinct animal swam, he said.
Basilosaurus isis is one of the primitive whales known as archaeocetes, which evolved from land mammals and later evolved into the two types of modern whale.
But it looks like a giant sea snake and the palaeontologists who found the first archaeocetes thought they were reptiles.
Modern whales swim by moving their horizontal fluke up and down in the water, while fish swim by lateral undulations.
"The research team will use the new skeleton to study how it lived and swam, and possibly to learn why it so abundant in Wadi Hitan," Gingerich said in a statement.
The statement said the skeleton will go to Michigan for preservation and replication. The original will then come back to Egypt for display.
Wadi Hitan is unusually rich in fossil remains from the period, trapped in a sandstone formation that then formed the sea bed. The fossils include five species of whale, three species of sea cow, two crocodiles, several turtles, a sea snake, and large numbers of fossilised sharks and bony fish.
It is a protected area to be developed as a national park under an Italian-Egyptian cooperative programme and it has been nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage site because of its natural beauty and scientific importance.
TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: evolution; freepun; missinglink; news; piltdownman; sandwhale; science
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Primitive Fossil Fleshes out Early Whale Evolution.
1
posted on
04/20/2005 10:09:59 AM PDT
by
balrog666
To: PatrickHenry
2
posted on
04/20/2005 10:10:45 AM PDT
by
balrog666
(A myth by any other name is still inane.)
To: balrog666
3
posted on
04/20/2005 10:13:59 AM PDT
by
SlowBoat407
(I'm not nearklym drunk enough tom deal with it. - FReeper Wormwood, 4/18/05)
To: balrog666
Maybe Earth is, after all, Magrathea.
4
posted on
04/20/2005 10:14:57 AM PDT
by
Bloody Sam Roberts
(Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.)
To: balrog666
The skeleton, which is 18 metres (50 feet) long, could throw light on why there are so many fossilised remains of whales and other ancient sea animals in Wadi Hitan and possibly how the extinct animal swam, he said.
GLOBAL FLOOD?
To: ThisLittleLightofMine
They all stranded themselves after being confused by sonar from archaeoboomer nuclearus.
6
posted on
04/20/2005 10:17:22 AM PDT
by
SlowBoat407
(I'm not nearklym drunk enough tom deal with it. - FReeper Wormwood, 4/18/05)
To: spetznaz; AdmSmith
7
posted on
04/20/2005 10:17:49 AM PDT
by
nuconvert
(No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
Comment #8 Removed by Moderator
To: SlowBoat407
9
posted on
04/20/2005 10:20:24 AM PDT
by
wyattearp
(The best weapon to have in a gunfight is a shotgun - preferably from ambush.)
To: balrog666
To: ThisLittleLightofMine
GLOBAL FLOOD? Ancient sea, actually.
11
posted on
04/20/2005 10:22:12 AM PDT
by
wyattearp
(The best weapon to have in a gunfight is a shotgun - preferably from ambush.)
To: Petes Sandy Girl
12
posted on
04/20/2005 10:28:53 AM PDT
by
balrog666
(A myth by any other name is still inane.)
To: VadeRetro; Junior; longshadow; RadioAstronomer; Doctor Stochastic; js1138; Shryke; RightWhale; ...
balrog666 thinks he's onto something here. I donno, but here's the requested ping.
EvolutionPing |
A pro-evolution science list with over 260 names. See list's description at my homepage. FReepmail to be added/dropped. |
|
|
|
13
posted on
04/20/2005 10:35:28 AM PDT
by
PatrickHenry
(<-- Click on my name. The List-O-Links for evolution threads is at my freeper homepage.)
To: balrog666
Basilosaurus isis is one of the primitive whales known as archaeocetes, which evolved from land mammals and later evolved into the two types of modern whale.,br>
This is a prime example of the macroevolutionists' disinfromatin campiagn: not thought to have evolved, not to have evolved, but stated as a fact. While in reality, the assumption that archaoecetes gave rise to modern whales has long been debated among evolutionists themselves! http://www.trueorigin.org/whales.asp
To: ThisLittleLightofMine
>>>GLOBAL FLOOD?>>>
NOOOO, are you kidding me? That is Biblical Mythology! There must be some other LOGICAL explanation as to how a whale ended up dead in the desert. /sarcasm
15
posted on
04/20/2005 10:39:06 AM PDT
by
sandbar
To: PatrickHenry; balrog666
sooner or later I will flesh out a question for the YEC's to a mature enough degree that I shall pose it to them. It concerns the relative densities and rates-of-sinking of bones versus particulate iridium.
16
posted on
04/20/2005 10:40:06 AM PDT
by
King Prout
(blast and char it among fetid buzzard guts!)
To: mikeus_maximus
"This is a prime example of the macroevolutionists' disinfromatin campiagn"
I like this. "disinfromatin campiagn." Very nice.
17
posted on
04/20/2005 10:41:14 AM PDT
by
MineralMan
(godless atheist)
To: balrog666
The skeleton, which is 18 metres (50 feet) ... 18 meters is actually closer to 60 feet. This would've been a big animal on the order of about 5 to 6 tonnes.
18
posted on
04/20/2005 10:42:45 AM PDT
by
Junior
(“Even if you are one-in-a-million, there are still 6,000 others just like you.”)
To: mikeus_maximus
disinfromatin campiagn I find it frustrating when my code doesn't compile for whatever reason. So many great ideas, so many unexpected characters.
19
posted on
04/20/2005 10:43:13 AM PDT
by
RightWhale
(50 trillion sovereign cells working together in relative harmony)
To: sandbar
The world changes slowly. 40 million years ago that desert was at the bottom of a sea.
20
posted on
04/20/2005 10:44:26 AM PDT
by
Junior
(“Even if you are one-in-a-million, there are still 6,000 others just like you.”)
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