Japanese Researchers Find Dolphin With 'Remains of Legs'
TOKYO — Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of back legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land.
Fishermen captured the four-finned dolphin off the coast of Wakayama prefecture (state) in western Japan on Oct. 28, and alerted the nearby Taiji Whaling Museum, according to museum director Katsuki Hayashi.
Fossil remains show dolphins and whales were four-footed land animals about 50 million years ago and share the same common ancestor as hippos and deer. Scientists believe they later transitioned to an aquatic lifestyle and their hind limbs disappeared.
Though odd-shaped protrusions have been found near the tails of dolphins and whales captured in the past, researchers say this was the first time one had been found with well-developed, symmetrical fins, Hayashi said.
"I believe the fins may be remains from the time when dolphins' ancient ancestors lived on land ... this is an unprecedented discovery," Seiji Osumi, an adviser at Tokyo's Institute of Cetacean Research, said at a news conference televised Sunday.
The second set of fins -- much smaller than the dolphin's front fins -- are about the size of human hands and protrude from near the tail on the dolphin's underside. The dolphin measures 8.92 feet and is about five years old, according to the museum.
A freak mutation may have caused the ancient trait to reassert itself, Osumi said. The dolphin will be kept at the Taiji museum to undergo X-ray and DNA tests, according to Hayashi.
GEEZ!!!!
3 comments:
Ditto!
maybe this one was trying to go back to land again? ROFL HAHAHAHAHA
what people will do to believe in lies!
Anonymous, every weekend I scavenge blogger, looking for dissenters. And I came across this post. In the year of our Lord, 1859, Charles Darwin set forth the grandest theory ever proposed: On The Origin of Species. Now, would you say that there is more tangible evidence in favor of transient evolution, emerging from the inherent favorability of randomly selected traits, or that one day, about 6000 years ago, an all-knowing "being" of some sort, snapped his fingers? Perhaps we should teach both theories in schools; one, however, would result in a very short lecture.
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