Paleo-Breakthrough (Seal Evolution) from an Arctic Fossil

A "missing link" fossil of a new mammal species from Canada's High Arctic rewrites the evolutionary story of seals. This prehistoric carnivore represents a new branch on a family tree, between an ancestor that walked on land and today's sea-going seals and their relatives. It provides insight into what pinnipeds (true seals, sea lions and the walrus) looked like before they were adapted to hunting in the ocean. It also suggests a different centre of pinniped evolution from that of the prevailing theory. The fossil is 24 to 20 million years old and was found in the Haughton Crater on Devon Island. The research team is led by Dr. Natalia Rybczynski of the Canadian Museum of Nature.

More information: http://nature.ca/newspecies

Subtitled version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bJ_ooFzSwY

French version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL_7aMLpB34

http://nature.ca — Canadian Museum of Nature

Category:

Education

Tags:

• fossils
• Arctic
• evolution
• paleontology
• palaeontology
• Haughton Crater
• missing link
• natural history
• Miocene Epoch
• Natalia Rybczynski
• Puijila darwini
• seals
• pinnipeds

[oppozed1]

@RespectMyHate You don't understand it at all, behaviour does not drive evolution environment does.

Random mutations which are either beneficial in the environment or not. If beneficial and in fact an improvement on the existing animal giving the animal with the random mutation a better chance to survive and breed than that mutation will be passed on to it's offspring.

With this better survival chance the offspring then produce even more offspring and so on till there are many like it.

[WEARENOTSIMPLE]

life came back and forward from water to land and then back for many times. body changes fast in evolution but the evolution of mind is slow and profound. evolution of mind will show u the real history of life. (important: mind is not intelligence of calculations. mind is the core of the brain. it gives " i, me and myself" to animals.)

[WEARENOTSIMPLE]

I'm not a scientist in fact I am a truck driver. I was fishing one day in the middle of the a bay. A seal came to investigate us. I looked into his eyes and he looked back at me. I saw a dog in him. I end up having a connection with him and hand fed him at the end (wrong). Then I came to this conclusion: " The environment changes the shape of the body faster than the change of the mind". I pictured what would the ancestor of both dog and seal looked like. It look just like this picture 1:23

[Tazy50]

@RespectMyHate nope, just stronger arms

[helliop]

Rybczynski is a dead ringer for Mona Lisa

[RespectMyHate]

If I start flapping my arms like a bird 24/7 365 days a year. in 1 million years will my grandkids will have wings?

[omiteru]

Science is part of an adventure of discovery and a part an investigate of circumstances. These are the reasons that I find science fascinating.

[CrixMakin]

I'm a layman, not a scientist, but I find pinniped and cetacean evolution completely fascinating. It's awesome to see how creatures could evolve from sea creatures, to land creatures, and back to sea creatures (albeit mammalian ones).

[TheFifthApes]

No "kind" of animal will ever give birth to any other completely different "kind" of animal. Your comment only shows your complete ignorance of the theory of evolution.

And, please define "Kind".

[VirgilFoxMusic]

777tone888: I see you're in to Kent Hovind. Be warned, Kent's version of evolution theory is NOT what evolution actually is. He has made up his own version. Think of this: If I was to make up my own version of Christianity and argue with you about it, you would be quick to point out that I was arguing about something that is not Christianity at all, right? Of course you would, and rightly so. You can't learn about evolution from KH just as you can't learn about Christ from me. Fair point?