Schockwave's Forum
Welcome, please register or login, thank you.
Schockwave's Forum
Welcome, please register or login, thank you.
Schockwave's Forum
Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.

Schockwave's Forum

A discussion forum of anything from photography to disability, sports, weather, politics, nature, just to name a few.
 
HomeHome  PortalPortal  SearchSearch  Latest imagesLatest images  ForumsForums  Schockwave's HomepageSchockwave's Homepage  My GuestbookMy Guestbook  RegisterRegister  Log inLog in  
Log in
Username:
Password:
Log in automatically: 
:: I forgot my password
Search
 
 

Display results as :
 
Rechercher Advanced Search
Navigation
 Portal
 Index
 Memberlist
 Profile
 FAQ
 Search
Latest topics
» German GP Result, Sunday, 12th July 2009
'Missing link' fossil seal walked Icon_minitimeTue 14 Jul 2009 - 15:17 by Schockwave

» British GP Result, Sunday 21st of June 2009
'Missing link' fossil seal walked Icon_minitimeSun 21 Jun 2009 - 9:00 by Schockwave

» Turkish GP, Sunday 7th June 2009
'Missing link' fossil seal walked Icon_minitimeTue 9 Jun 2009 - 16:39 by Schockwave

» Amazing Ball Routine
'Missing link' fossil seal walked Icon_minitimeSun 31 May 2009 - 9:17 by Schockwave

» Bizarre Laws
'Missing link' fossil seal walked Icon_minitimeSun 31 May 2009 - 9:16 by Schockwave

» Bizarre Holidays
'Missing link' fossil seal walked Icon_minitimeSun 31 May 2009 - 9:12 by Schockwave

» Monaco GP Result, Sunday 24th May 2009
'Missing link' fossil seal walked Icon_minitimeTue 26 May 2009 - 15:49 by Schockwave

» UK 'worst electrical recycler'
'Missing link' fossil seal walked Icon_minitimeSat 23 May 2009 - 7:00 by Schockwave

» Call for 'better deal for carers'
'Missing link' fossil seal walked Icon_minitimeSat 23 May 2009 - 6:26 by Schockwave

Guestbook
Free Guestbook
My Guestbook
Forum
Affiliates
free forum
 
March 2024
MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
    123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
CalendarCalendar
Top posters
Schockwave
'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_vote_lcap'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_voting_bar'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_vote_rcap 
Mystery
'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_vote_lcap'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_voting_bar'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_vote_rcap 
kahuna
'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_vote_lcap'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_voting_bar'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_vote_rcap 
Bearhunt
'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_vote_lcap'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_voting_bar'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_vote_rcap 
Mr.Stamper
'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_vote_lcap'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_voting_bar'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_vote_rcap 
acdcpirate
'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_vote_lcap'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_voting_bar'Missing link' fossil seal walked I_vote_rcap 
Counter
Online
Flag Counter
free counters

 

 'Missing link' fossil seal walked

Go down 
AuthorMessage
Schockwave
Site Owner
Site Owner
Schockwave


Number of posts : 78
Location : On the Rooftop on top of a Mountain
Warning Level : 'Missing link' fossil seal walked Mta0p2
Moods : 'Missing link' fossil seal walked Th_wel10
Reputation : 0
Points : 148
Registration date : 2009-03-07

'Missing link' fossil seal walked Empty
PostSubject: 'Missing link' fossil seal walked   'Missing link' fossil seal walked Icon_minitimeWed 22 Apr 2009 - 17:00

It may look like a cross between a seal and an otter; but an Arctic fossil could, scientists say, hold the secret of seal evolution in its feet.

A skeleton unearthed in northern Canada shows a creature with feet that were probably webbed, but were not flippers.

Writing in the journal Nature, scientists suggest the 23 million-year-old proto-seal would have walked on land and swum in fresh water.

It is the oldest seal ancestor found so far and has been named Pujilla darwini.

Pujilla is the term for "young sea mammal" in the Inuktitut language, spoken by Inuit groups in Devon Island where the fossil was found.

And the reference to Charles Darwin honours the famous biologist's contention that land mammals would naturally move into the marine environment via a fresh water stage, just as pinnipeds - seals, sealions and walruses - have apparently done.

"The find suggests that pinnipeds went through a fresh water phase in their evolution," said Natalia Rybczynski from the Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN) in Ottawa, who led the fieldwork.

"It also provides us with a glimpse of what pinnipeds looked like before they had flippers."

Flip side

The skeleton was about 65% complete, which enabled the researchers to reconstruct what the animal would have looked like in remarkable detail.

The legs suggest it would have walked upright on land; but the foot bones hint strongly at webbed feet. The fact that the remains were found in a former crater lake that has also yielded fossil fish from the same period was additional evidence for a semi-aquatic past.

"The remarkably preserved skeleton of Pujilla had heavy limbs, indicative of well developed muscles, and flattened phalanges (finger or toe bones) which suggest that the feet were webbed - but not flippers," said Mary Dawson from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, US, another of the scientists involved.

"This animal was likely adept at both swimming and walking on land. Pujilla is the evolutionary evidence we have been lacking for so long."

Until now, the most primitive fossil pinniped was a creature called Enaliarctos that dates from about the same period and appears to have lived in the sea along the northwestern coasts of North America.

Enaliarctos had flippers, but may have had to bring its prey to the shore for eating, whereas modern pinnipeds manage it at sea.

Intriguingly, different species of present-day seal swim in different ways - either rotating their flippers, or waving their hind-quarters from side to side, using the hind limbs for propulsion.

Enaliarctos appears to have been capable of both modes of swimming - and as a four-legged animal with four webbed feet, Pujilla is a logical fore-runner of this creature which could swim with all four limbs.

The new discovery also shows, the scientists say, that seals, sealions and walruses very likely had their origins in the Arctic.

Darwin forecast the transition from land to sea via fresh water in his seminal work On the Origin of Species, published 150 years ago this year.

"A strictly terrestrial animal, by occasionally hunting for food in shallow water, then in streams or lakes, might at last be converted in an animal so thoroughly aquatic as to brace the open ocean," he wrote.

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8012322.stm
Back to top Go down
http://schockwave.webs.com/
 
'Missing link' fossil seal walked
Back to top 
Page 1 of 1

Permissions in this forum:You cannot reply to topics in this forum
Schockwave's Forum :: News :: News-
Jump to: