Which came first, the whale or the cow? It may never be a catch phrase, but that question has been perplexing researchers for years.
In the Sept. 21 issue of Science, Philip Gingerich of the University of Michigan displayed his research, which includes a fossil of a whale with an ankle bone.
The ankle bone resembles the ankle bone of a family of mammals that includes cows, sheep, goats, deer and pigs.
'We've thought since the '60s that whales evolved from hoofed, carnivorous mammals,' said Gingerich.
Research on this link has been conducted worldwide. The fossils came directly from Pakistan, and praise has been coming in from as far away as California.
John Gatesy, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California-Riverside told Science News the new findings are 'very exciting for those of us working on molecular data.'
Gatesy has been working on DNA segments linking the two families.
