Aug 20, 2025 10:22 PM
(This post was last modified: Aug 20, 2025 10:23 PM by C C.)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n...180987160/
INTRO: The story of whales did not begin in the seas. For millions of years before beasts like the sinuous Basilosaurus lived full time in the ocean, the shorelines and estuaries of prehistoric Earth were filled with amphibious whales that more closely resembled otters and crocodiles than humpbacks. The first whales walked.
Paleontologists have been pondering whale origins since the late 19th century. They knew that whales evolved from land-dwelling ancestors because of vestiges of hind limbs sometimes found in whale skeletons and other anatomical clues held in common with terrestrial mammals. Who those ancestors were, and how the transcendent evolutionary change from land to water occurred, was unclear. But since the 1970s paleontologists have found a vast array of early whales.
The fossil finds have indicated that whales are artiodactyls—members of the hoofed mammal group that includes hippos and cows—and that aquatic whales as we know them represent one offshoot of a diverse array of early, semi-aquatic whales that evolved in the shallows. This list offers a fossil highlight reel of some of these beasts... (MORE - details)
COVERED:
Pakicetus
Ichthyolestes
Ambulocetus
Kutchicetus
Maiacetus
Phiomicetus
Georgiacetus
Peregocetus
Pappocetus
Aegicetus
INTRO: The story of whales did not begin in the seas. For millions of years before beasts like the sinuous Basilosaurus lived full time in the ocean, the shorelines and estuaries of prehistoric Earth were filled with amphibious whales that more closely resembled otters and crocodiles than humpbacks. The first whales walked.
Paleontologists have been pondering whale origins since the late 19th century. They knew that whales evolved from land-dwelling ancestors because of vestiges of hind limbs sometimes found in whale skeletons and other anatomical clues held in common with terrestrial mammals. Who those ancestors were, and how the transcendent evolutionary change from land to water occurred, was unclear. But since the 1970s paleontologists have found a vast array of early whales.
The fossil finds have indicated that whales are artiodactyls—members of the hoofed mammal group that includes hippos and cows—and that aquatic whales as we know them represent one offshoot of a diverse array of early, semi-aquatic whales that evolved in the shallows. This list offers a fossil highlight reel of some of these beasts... (MORE - details)
COVERED:
Pakicetus
Ichthyolestes
Ambulocetus
Kutchicetus
Maiacetus
Phiomicetus
Georgiacetus
Peregocetus
Pappocetus
Aegicetus