When Whales Could Walk… Excuse Me?
At the beginning of this documentary, the narrator says something about “how did whales end up in the ocean,” and to be honest that fucked me up because whales make sense to me if I think of them as something that’s always been in the ocean, and if I have to reorient my mind around the fact that maybe they used to not be in the ocean, I’ve got to re-think a lot of things. On the other hand, the documentary is called When Whales Could Walk, so that’s on me. I should have seen that coming. I did that to myself. And now I’m doing it to you.
This fossil graveyard, millions of years old, is known as the “Valley of the Whales.” Now, paleontologists have unearthed a whole new species of ancient whale dating to 43 million years ago, and this predator wasn’t just able to swim – it also had four legs and could walk.
(via @propcazhpm.bsky.social)
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For Canadian readers who can't access this link, here is a documentary from CBC's The Nature of Things on the same topic:
https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-nature-of-things/cracking-the-case-of-the-walking-whale-an-evolutionary-whodunit-1.7066452
Thanks, Chris!
Thank you for linking to this show. I enjoyed watching it.
This is so cool.
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