And now for someting completely different.

[razors edge]

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-japan-dolphin-legs,0,7258888.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

Dolphin May Have 'Remains' of Legs
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Associated Press Writer

November 5, 2006, 2:30 AM EST

TOKYO -- Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of hind legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land.

Fishermen captured the four-finned dolphin alive 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.

Whale and dolphin fetuses also show signs of hind protrusions but these generally disappear before birth.

[goddess40]

1. They just sewed those fins on - it's all a hoax

just like the dinosaurs and the missing link humanoids.

[razors edge]

3. Damned libruls will do anything,

even mutilate god's creatures to brainwash the people.

[Benhurst]

2. This is the work of the Devil, out to confuse us. I don't believe

anything written after The Bronze Age.

[razors edge]

4. Colbert, is that you?

[ms liberty]

5. This is interesting. Thanks for posting...

You might appreciate this, it's an oldie but a goodie:

"Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs"

HONOLULU–In an announcement with grave implications for the primacy of the species of man, marine biologists at the Hawaii Oceanographic Institute reported Monday that dolphins, or family Delphinidae, have evolved opposable thumbs on their pectoral fins.

"I believe I speak for the entire human race when I say, 'Holy fuck,'" said Oceanographic Institute director Dr. James Aoki, noting that the dolphin has a cranial capacity 40 percent greater than that of humans. "That's it for us monkeys."

-snip-


"They really seem to be making up for lost time with this thumb thing," said Dr. Jim Kuczaj, a University of California–San Diego biologist who has studied the seasonal behavior of dolphins for more than 30 years. "Last Friday, a crude seaweed-and-shell abacus washed up on the beach near Hilo, Hawaii. The next day, a far more sophisticated abacus, fashioned from some unknown material and capable of calculating equations involving numbers of up to 16 digits, washed up on the same beach. The day after that, the beach was littered with thousands of what turned out to be coral-silicate and kelp-based biomicrocircuitry."

"My God," Kuczaj added. "What are they doing down there?"

more at link - I recommend it!


http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28315

[razors edge]

13. Gotta love the old Onion. n't

[SoCalDem]

6. That dolphin was a tourist.. It lives in Springfield

His roommate confirmed..

[Richard Steele]

7. ...a man with three buttocks:

[smirkymonkey]

17. Closely related to the Monkey with Five Asses....

[BuyingThyme]

8. What kinda shoes?

[meganmonkey]

9. But could they ever do

the Silly Walk?

[razors edge]

14. too damn funny. n/t

[TahitiNut]

10. (sigh) I sure wish I could do that.

They have big .... (cough) ... , too.

[kestrel91316]

11. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Or whatever.

"......Whale and dolphin fetuses also show signs of hind protrusions but these generally disappear before birth......"

[Rosemary2205]

12. This doesn't make sense

Not really to the OP, but to respondants in general.........


If whales and dolphins once had 4 legs and lived on land and then evolved into water creatures then how does that prove land animals evolved from sea animals?

This would be a case for natural selection, not evolution.

Or do I have the terms confused?

[razors edge]

15. It doesn't

Life began in the seas with trilobites as an early example of organized cell colonization , and eventually moved onto land over many, many millions of years.

Some species, for whatever reason, moved back to the water, after developing the motive advantages of long appendages supported by bones.

Whether or not that development was complete before returning to water is hard to say, as a fossil in the middle could be seen as being on the way out, or on the way back to the water.

Either way, evidence of evolution such as this is becoming harder to dismiss. As some tend to do.

[Richard Steele]

16. "Natural Selection" is not some predetermined path with a start and finish.

All animal species are constantly struggling to increase their
numbers. They are continually spreading in every direction exactly
as quickly as they can adapt to different conditions.

EVERY direction.

So, some fish began to come up on land; some of their descendants
ADAPTED to stay there permanently.

And, as the LAND was filled, some of them adapted to live ABOVE it,
in the trees. Some even adapted to live WAY above it, in the air.

As time went by, and species evolved and conditions changed,
and random chance occurred randomly, some species had descendants
who stopped taking to the air and came back to the land. Like ostriches,
and emus, and those yummy Dodos.

Some of them had offspring who came back down from the TREES to live
on the land again, like US. (the Dodos never saw THAT one coming!)

And some of the land-based species had offspring who adapted to life
in the oceans again, like whales and dolphins.

So, *ANYWHERE* you look, you can find species whose ANCESTORS were
adapted to live somewhere else. Birds that live on the ground, mammals
that live in the sea, frogs living in the top of the Amazon forest trees, etc.

Natural Selection just says that, given enough time, ANY species will
eventually ADAPT to any set of surroundings, (just so long as it doesn't
become EXTINCT in the attempt)