Whales related to horses: see how they jumped!
(Note: updated to include the actual photo!)
That's what it looks like it's doing over that bar, which I take it is a measuring stick (probably a meter).
This is from an article
Ancient Whale Gave Birth on Land : Discovery News which is really misleading since this is not a whale but a "missing link" ancestor of whales. The actual article is here but it prints out really weird, and if you click on print the version you get leaves out this picture of a jumping whale with feet.
It's a good article; the web design is poor, though.
An excerpt from the article:... its species -- an ancestor to modern whales -- gave birth on land 47.5 million years ago, according to a paper published in the online journal PLoS.
The discovery, along with prior fossil finds, suggests the first whale ancestors were full-time land dwellers that might have been related to the early relatives of hoofed animals, such as sheep and cattle.
Maiacetus inuus, meaning "mother whale," represents an intermediate evolutionary stage. It lived at the land-sea interface and often moved back and forth between the two environments in what is Pakistan today.
It looked like an improbable cross between a cow, whale, shark, alligator and sea lion.
That's what it looks like it's doing over that bar, which I take it is a measuring stick (probably a meter).
This is from an article
Ancient Whale Gave Birth on Land : Discovery News which is really misleading since this is not a whale but a "missing link" ancestor of whales. The actual article is here but it prints out really weird, and if you click on print the version you get leaves out this picture of a jumping whale with feet.
It's a good article; the web design is poor, though.
An excerpt from the article:... its species -- an ancestor to modern whales -- gave birth on land 47.5 million years ago, according to a paper published in the online journal PLoS.
The discovery, along with prior fossil finds, suggests the first whale ancestors were full-time land dwellers that might have been related to the early relatives of hoofed animals, such as sheep and cattle.
Maiacetus inuus, meaning "mother whale," represents an intermediate evolutionary stage. It lived at the land-sea interface and often moved back and forth between the two environments in what is Pakistan today.
It looked like an improbable cross between a cow, whale, shark, alligator and sea lion.