New fossil found in the Arctic may bridge gap between seals and land mammals

A mishap of running out of gas may have lead to a great new discovery in the evolutionary chain.

www.cbc.ca...

The fossil remains of a flipper-free mammal related to modern seals have been discovered in Nunavut by Ottawa researchers who stumbled upon them after their ATV ran out of gas.

Natalia Rybczynski, a paleontologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature, and her research team found the first bone of the ancient pinniped — the scientific group that includes seals, sea lions and walruses — while waiting for other team members to return with a jerry can of fuel during an expedition to a former crater lake on Devon Island in 2007.

What a serendipitous discovery!

The researchers believe that they may have found a missing link between water based and land based animals in the high Arctic.

The findings have been published in Nature, the abstract of which can be found here...

www.nature.com...

You can listen to an interview with Dr. Rybczynski from a weekly radio show here...

www.cbc.ca...

Her interview is about half way through the show.

They have found about 65% of the fossil to date.

Another article about this find from NG.

news.nationalgeographic.com...

The Arctic is such a great source for fossils. It just takes so much work to get to them.



[edit on 25-4-2009 by GAOTU789]

reply to post by GAOTU789


Very cool find, thanks for sharing.

Of course every discovery such as this one provides a further opportunity for the God of the Gappers to jump in and refute evolution, but what you gonna do?

It's yet another transitional fossil, everyone! Oooh and aaah over it, and laugh when the creationists scramble to pave it over with excuses. scienceblogs

Edit to add something useful to the thread:

I found this website dedicated to this beautiful creature: nature.ca

[edit on 25 Apr 2009 by schrodingers dog]

reply to post by schrodingers dog


Hence the placement here instead of the Origins and Creationism forum. It may not get as many responses but it may stay a little clearer in it's focus.

I like the fact that it was just dumb luck that provided this find. It always amazes me when nothing but luck( or is it? ) leads to such amazing discoveries. I listened to the Dr. involved in this this afternoon at work discussing the find and it is awe inspiring to think that the Arctic of today was a whole lot warmer and friendlier millions of years ago.

Originally posted by schrodingers dog


I found this website dedicated to this beautiful creature: nature.ca

[edit on 25 Apr 2009 by schrodingers dog]

Good stuff man.

I was just looking at that and getting ready to post it. What an amazing little creature.

Originally posted by GAOTU789
reply to post by schrodingers dog

 

I listened to the Dr. involved in this this afternoon at work discussing the find and it is awe inspiring to think that the Arctic of today was a whole lot warmer and friendlier millions of years ago.

Yep, and to emphasize the point, it's amazing where they found this little guy:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/22de55f68322.gif[/atsimg]