(IN): Whales evolved in India: Scientists

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Whales evolved in India: Scientists*

Tania Saili Bakshi, Pallava Bagla

 

Thursday, December 20, 2007 (New Delhi)

Scientists since the times of Charles Darwin have known that ancestors of

Whales must have been land-walking mammals but nobody knew who these ancient

animals were or where the Whales actually evolved on the globe. Now Indian

scientists have some answers, which suggest that Whales actually evolved in

India.

 

It is hard to imagine that the ancestors of these graceful giants of the

oceans, the Whales, were land dwelling deer-like animals.

 

In a new discovery from India, Indohyus, an ancient mammal walked in India

48 million years ago.

 

The fossils were discovered by two Indian scientists who were part of an

Indo-American team that went about unraveling the mystery surrounding the

origin of whales.

 

They collected these fossils from the Kalakot region of Jammu and Kashmir,

which was once partly under the sea.

 

This discovery completes the missing link that scientists were long hoping

to unravel.

 

Fossil hunters B N Tiwari from the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology,

Dehra Dun and Sunil Bajpai from IIT, Roorkee were part of the global team

that published its findings in the latest issue of the prestigious British

journal *Nature*.

 

''Whale origin was a dramatic evolutionary event when an animal with four

legs moved from land to sea. Our research of over the past ten years or more

has shown that the Whales originated in the Indian subcontinent. This work

confirms that conclusion, we have identified the closest relation of fossil

Whales,'' said Dr Sunil Bajpai, Department of Earth Sciences IIT, Roorkee.

 

With funding from the Department of Science and Technology, this team was

able to conclude that the fossils from Kashmir and Bajpai's own collection

of more recent Whale fossils from Kutch in Gujarat bore key similarities to

Indohyus, the vegetarian ancestor to fish eating Whales.

 

''This animal which was the size of a fox looked something like a tiny deer

and we have identified a number of key similarities between this animal and

whales between skull and ear and these similarities suggest a close family

relationship,'' added Bajpai.

 

 

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