40-Million-Year-Old 'Walking Whale' Fossil Found In Peru 102
minty3 writes "Found in the Ocucaje Desert in southern Peru, the fossils belong to a group called Achaeocetes, or ancient whales, that possess both land and sea-dwelling characteristics. Over time, the ancient land animals adapted to water environments where their legs became fin-like and their bodies began to resemble modern sea mammals like dolphins and whales."
Invertibrate Whales? (Score:5, Insightful)
They lost their spine and hind legs 5 million years later
I can see why slashdotters don't read the article if the article claims things like whales are invertebrates ;-)
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You know quoting from Kent Hovind's PhD thesis is technically copyright infringement.
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>> whales are invertebrates
Given their size, it seems more likely the vertebrates are in them.
Re:Invertibrate Whales? (Score:4, Funny)
"They lost their spine"
Seeing their imminent defeat at the hands of the coconut-wielding proto-simians, their landlubbing ancestors lost heart and fled to the sea.
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I think they meant their Hind legs have been disconnected with their spine.
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Well.. Whales have a vestigial pelvis. Somehow the author, editor, and whoever else they have reviewing news stories failed to recognize the glaring mistake.
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cool (Score:3)
Whales could walk and serpents could talk. No problems whatsoever.
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Hmm, I still prefer money and bullshit
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In hebrew the root of the word for serpent is the same as to lie.
Well, I don't see many deceptive snakes in nature...
Now, in English the root of the word Lawyer is the same as oppression.
IMO, accuracy counts when picking predictive fairy tales.
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> Well, I don't see many deceptive snakes in nature...
Maybe parent hinted at the fact that snake might refer to a liar instead of a reptile. But no, let's forget that referring to people as animals is commonplace in literature and common talk...
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This seems a weak argument. Genesis IIRC is oral tradition transcribed at some point. Figures of speech symbols rhymes repetitions and others could have been employed. Some time later, a guy would teach using parables.
Besides, the bible is not a proof that needs confutation, believers themselves say that you are free to choose, if a coherent sacred text is a requirement for you to start considering a religion, there are no probs here.
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LOL it's the week of the serpent, see my comment history.
I was wondering (Score:5, Funny)
40-Million-Year-Old 'Walking Whale' Fossil Found In Peru
I was wondering what had happened to Cowboy Neil. Glad they found him again.
That's Archaeocetes! (Score:5, Informative)
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I think rather than use a spell checker, we should just define 'Achaeocetes' as a new word.
Re:That's Archaeocetes! (Score:5, Insightful)
How many people have Latin spell-checking installed?
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Re:That's Archaeocetes! (Score:4, Funny)
classicla
You conjugated wrong.
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classicla
You conjugated wrong.
Easy now, MightyYar, yon spell check be old as thar elusive whale ye hunt.
Ifn ye 40 million years tardy, grants not a right one to accost hapless landlubbers.
Bad Form.
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You conjugated wrong.
oh, if I only had a nickel for every time I was told that...
Re:That's Archaeocetes! (Score:4, Informative)
Let me put it this way: If your first language is any of { english, french, italian, spanish, ... } - you should have an instinctive feel for the spelling of Latin. If not, well, sorry boy-o, but you're a rube.
Except for two points:
A) English is more Germanic based than Latin based. So we aren't particularly strong in old-time Latin. That's why we actually make up words that have one root in Latin and one in Greek, and can't see the problem.
B) Most of our Latin comes from French, and not the modern form of it at that, but Old French. Old French [wikipedia.org] is itself a bastardized form of Latin, and the native Gaul tongue had some role in it.
So, with these aspects of English being what they are, it's hardly surprising if we see little relation from our modern words to their original form in ancient Rome.
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It's misspelled in the article as well as in the summary, so I guess we know that a) at least the submitter can copy and paste accurately, and b) the International Business Times is probably not the best place for accurate science reporting.
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So you're telling me there is a chance they might be wrong when they say prehistoric animals lost their spine when evolving into whales, and that I shouldn't necessarily trust them?
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It's not a typo, it's a potentially beneficial syntactic mutation.
Huge teeth (Score:4, Interesting)
Those teeth suggest that the old whales weren't exactly the "peaceful giants of the sea".
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Are you fin ished?
Re:Huge teeth (Score:5, Informative)
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You mean cetacean please. The cetacean he's mentioning is the killer whale. All whales are carnivorous. Other toothed whales eat fish. Baleen whales eat krill and other small marine animals, but they no doubt get a little green in their diet too.
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Despite their informal name, "killer whales" are actually dolphins (google it), so they're not "whales eating other whales". They would be "cetaceans eating other cetaceans" though. I don't think any other cetaceans try to eat whales, though there are other toothed whales that can eat other small sea creatures.
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Want to know which is which? Just file right of way for an interstellar express way, and see which ones skedaddle.
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I don't remember being corrected on this before.. (not saying that nobody has tried, but I don't remember it). Perhaps if you'd give some evidence that they are whales rather than just saying they are, I'd change my mental model of the cetacean family.
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I don't remember being corrected on this before.. (not saying that nobody has tried, but I don't remember it). Perhaps if you'd give some evidence that they are whales rather than just saying they are, I'd change my mental model of the cetacean family.
Killer whale scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Cetacea (all whales)
Suborder: Odontoceti (toothed whales, including dolphins and porpoises)
Family: Delphinidae (oceanic dolphin)
Genus: Orcinus
Species: O. orca
Backup from a non-wiki source:
The word "cetacean" is derived from the Greek word for whale, ketos [...] Living cetaceans are further divided into two suborders: the Odontoceti (toothed whales) and the Mysticeti (baleen whales). [seaworld.org]
In other
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Sometimes whale specifically means the suborder of mysticeti (baleen whales), and others it includes all cetacea (namely odontoceti or toothed whales, which includes dolphins). I'm no expert, but I would consider toothed whales as whales, which is how I've typically seen it classified.
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Especially when you're telling someone else that they're wrong.
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"Cetacean" does not mean or imply "Dolphin". Sperm Whales, (for example, the whale in Moby Dick [wikipedia.org]) are also Ceateans [wikipedia.org].
I don't really mind someone like the GP getting a smidge sloppy with terminology in the interests of brevity, clarity, or wit. What I do mind is someone leaping all over them over a technicality, when they in fact don't have their details down right either.
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Dolphins, Orca's and Sperm whales have teeth too.
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WhaleMart (Score:5, Funny)
Aren't walking whales quite common at places like Walmart?
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Well, like all successful species, we are spreading to other lands and continents. At least the important, defining, bulging features are. Look about you.
Re:WhaleMart (Score:4, Funny)
no no no ! (Score:2)
Satan put those so-called fossils there to confuse us and test our faith. Every intelligent being alive knows the world is only about 6000 years old.
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I like this "Satan" guy. Anagram: Santa, who also stashes stuff to test kids faith in their parents... I bet Satan's fun as hell at parties. Now that you mention it, he probably came up with the lampshade trick too.
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I bet Satan's fun as hell at parties. Now that you mention it, he probably came up with the lampshade trick too.
Well, if you'd please allow him to introduce himself, you'd find he's a man of wealth and taste!
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Satan put those so-called fossils there to confuse us and test our faith. Every intelligent being alive knows the world is only about 6000 years old.
Strangely, I'm not sure where this whole "6000" years thing comes from. There's no actual Biblical claim about the Earth's age yet a lot of Christians believe the Earth is just a few thousand years old. Most don't, but some do.
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For example:
(21) And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: (22) And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and Enoch begat sons and daughters: (23) And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: (24) And Enoch walked with God: and he [was] not; for God took him. (25) And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech: (26) And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters: (27) And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. (KJV)
Re:New BBC Series (Score:5, Funny)
Dodgy Source (Score:4, Informative)
That makes it about as trustworthy and reliable as stories on Fox News
Re:Dodgy Source (Score:4, Insightful)
At least that link shows an artist impression of the creatures, which is the only thing most people care about. Thanks for posting. :-)
Re:Dodgy Source (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, you need to go deeper. They're reporting it from Euronews:
http://www.euronews.com/2013/09/14/peru-discovers-whale-fossils-in-desert-dating-back-40-million-years/ [euronews.com]
Crap site (Score:2)
Self playing video with sound + Pop-up = CRAP SITE never to be visited again.
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And also a crap browser setup never to be used again.
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I don't recommend AdBlock, I recommend NoScript and FlashBlock. You can have a good browser setup that doesn't discriminate against all ads.
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All NoScript does is force the user to bypass it or tweak it all the time, thereby causing more annoyance than it prevents. Uninstalled it eons ago, upon realizing that it only gives a pretense of safety.
Gap in Fossil Record Filled! (Score:2)
... and two new gaps created!
Doh.
Where are the 'feet'? (Score:1, Insightful)
That is just one problem I have with evolution and science in general. They show me a piece of a bone, tell me all about how it is a transitional fossil, then draw a pretty picture to fill in the missing parts and call it 'evidence'.
There is another word for that, it is called 'comic books'.
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+1 The skull looks more like a crocodile than some acient whale transitioning to how they look now. This scientists are nuts, they are so sofocated to find evidence of evolution that they are parcticing science fiction.
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I take it you haven't spent much time looking at bones beyond the one in your pork chop. There's actually a **LOT** of information there if you know what you're looking at. Take three upper leg front bones, one from a white tailed deer, another from a pronghorn antelope, and the third from a bighorn sheep. Three similar North American animals, you probably wouldn't be able to guess which went to which. A biologist on the other hand would be able to tell at a glance which was optimized for running, which
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Almost as important,
If you were to give the bones to 100 independent biologists, they would come to the same (or very similar) conclusions.
And the amazing thing is that evolutionary biologists- given an older example of a species and a later example of a species can (and have) predicted what the bones between those two samples would look like and (this was cool for me) where geographically and in what layer of depth the intermediate specimen would be found.
Independent verification and predictable falsifiabl
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"And the amazing thing is that evolutionary biologists- given an older example of a species and a later example of a species can (and have) predicted what the bones between those two samples would look like and (this was cool for me) where geographically and in what layer of depth the intermediate specimen would be found."
A great example of that it Tiktaalik:
http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/searching4Tik.html [uchicago.edu]
Bert
Nothing new. (Score:1, Insightful)
The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeoceti [slashdot.org]">Wikipedia entry for this creature seems to paint a different picture than the article wants to present. This article makes it seem like this evolutionary step in whales is a new thing, but it looks like scientists have known about it for a while. The entry even has images of complete skeletons and a nice illustration.
It's kind of funny to think that animals came out of the water, wandered around a bit and decided they didn't like it so returned to the seas. A
Little Wooden Boy and the Belly of Love (Score:2)
Reporter: "One week later, Blow-hole plunged into the icy waters of the Atlantic, disappearing without comment. Is he planning a return trip? One thing is certain--No one knows."