The common ancestor of whales and of all other land ... was working on a Basilosaurus skeleton when he uncovered the first known whale knee, on a leg positioned much farther down the animal's ...

Their land-dwelling ancestors lived about 50 million years ago. Meet Pakicetus, a goat-sized, four-legged creature that scientists recognise as one of the first cetaceans (the group of marine animals ...

Imagine looking at a majestic blue whale gliding effortlessly through the ocean, the largest animal on Earth. Now, picture ...

In doing so, it lost its legs, and all of its vital systems became adapted to a marine existence -- the reverse of what happened millions of years previously, when the first animals crawled out of ...

In 2011, marine biologists studying whales in the wild first observed “trap feeding ... hunting techniques—and because our ancestors simply came across whales more frequently.

Gingerich speculates that whales’ landlubber ancestors were deer- or pig-like scavengers living near the sea. About 55 million years ago, they started spending more time in the water ...

Whales, the ocean's largest ... Around 50 million years ago, their ancestors roamed the shores, evolving into the marine giants we know today. One of the first cetaceans, Pakicetus, was a goat ...

Along the way, we meet an extraordinary cast of ancient characters, from four-tusked elephants to crocs that would dwarf any reptile alive today to a whale ancestor that walked on four legs.