It sounds like this whale fossil doesn't include the leg bones themselves. However:
The 11-foot-long whale has well-defined hip sockets that suggest the animal had legs. But its legs were used less for walking (they were too feeble) than for propelling the beast in water, though its tail did most of the work.
The hip sockets, according to Tharp and Giesler, means the Vogtle whale is the link between two phases of the evolution of whales, porpoises and dolphins; one phase that had legs and walked on land and the other that lost its legs after taking to the water.
Georgia Southern University scientists know the Georgia specimen fills a gap in evolutionary history because its pelvis was found intact.
"It was the most important part of the specimen," said Tharp. "In many cases like this, the pelvis does not survive."
"In living whales, there's a little nub of bone that suggests whales once had legs," said Giesler.
Giesler went on to say older skeletons of a closely related species of whale have been discovered in Pakistan and India. Each whale has a pelvis connected to the backbone, which allowed it to walk on land. The Vogtle whale's hip, however, wasn't firmly joined to its spine. So it probably didn't walk on land.
"My guess is that it never left the water," Giesler said of the whale's puny hind limbs.
The difference between the Asian whales and the Georgia skeleton suggests its slow (millions of years) progression from land walker in the Asian sub-continent to ocean dweller in North America.
"Although its hind limbs were not found, we know they were there, based on its hip sockets," Geisler said. "But the hip sockets were no longer connected to the spinal cord, as they are in earlier whales that were land animals."