lunes, 25 de noviembre de 2013

POST 4: SUMMARY FROM A CAREER-RELATED ARTICLE

40 Million-Year-Old ‘Walking Whale’ Fossil Discovered In Peru’s Ocucaje Desert

 


 

A fósil of a walking whale was found in Ocucaje desert in Southern Perú, this fosil belong to a group called Achaeocetes. The Peruvian paleontologist Rodolfo Salas, said about the fin “Now we can say that the most important primitive sea mammal deposit in south america is at Ocucaje”, The ocucaje site is dating back from 10 to 12 millions years.

The Whale`s remains are the oldest ever found in South America, the skull resembles that of  a wolf or crocodile and  may help researchers understand the link between modern whales and their ancestors. find such a large and complete specimen including cranial and pòst cranial remainds is uncommon, because in a marine enviroment the bones are usually scavenged and altered by diagenetic procces.
Having the vertebrae, the ribs, the flipper bones. It will give us a more complete picture of what these animals looked like. The paleontologist explain to de Newspapper.


The first Whale ancestor was hairy, four legged omnivore that evolve into a amphibious species. The fossil weigthed about 1,100 pounds and measured 19 feet long, the scientist believe, there are more specimens to be found at the Ocucaje desert in Perú, but it takes high-tech, resources and equipment to locate and recover them. There are more tan 10 whale fossils dicovered and recovered in the Ocucaje desert.

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