Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Carl Buell Paints Ancient Whale Indohyus
Back in September my friend Carl Buell accidentally let it slip that he was working on a super secret painting of an early ancestor of whales for Nature magazine. I was intrigued, but no matter how much I wheedled him about it, he wouldn't give up any more details.
Well, in today's issue of Nature, the details have arrived - and how!
[link] Although the first ten million years of whale evolution are documented by a remarkable series of fossil skeletons, the link to the ancestor of cetaceans has been missing. It was known that whales are related to even-toed ungulates (artiodactyls), but until now no artiodactyls were morphologically close to early whales. Here we show that the Eocene south Asian raoellid artiodactyls are the sister group to whales. The raoellid Indohyus is similar to whales, and unlike other artiodactyls, in the structure of its ears and premolars, in the density of its limb bones and in the stable-oxygen-isotope composition of its teeth. We also show that a major dietary change occurred during the transition from artiodactyls to whales and that raoellids were aquatic waders. This indicates that aquatic life in this lineage occurred before the origin of the order Cetacea.
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Seriously cool.
Decidedly so. I'd seen word of this in the news and at PZ's, but hadn't seen the image or article yet.
Carl is an amazing artist, there's no doubt about it.
Jim Downey
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