Did you know?

Whale skeleton showing pelvis and thigh bones

I found this stuff while aimlessly surfing at work just before I left the office.

Biologists believe that for 100 million years the only vertebrates on Earth were water-dwelling creatures, with no arms or legs. At some point these “fish” began to develop hips and legs and eventually were able to walk out of the water, giving the earth its first land lovers. Once the land-dwelling creatures evolved, there were some mammals that moved back into the water. Biologists estimate that this happened about 50 million years ago, and that this mammal was the ancestor of the modern whale. Despite the apparent uselessness, evolution left traces of hind legs behind, and these vestigial limbs can still be seen in the modern whale. There are many cases where whales have been found with rudimentary hind limbs in the wild, and have been found in baleen whales, humpback whales, and in many specimens of sperm whales. Most of these examples are of whales that had only leg bones, but there were some that included feet with complete digits. It was reported recently that whales and hippos were distantly related.

No prizes for guessing which whale didn't move back into the water. I'll have an update about the cheap and the disgusting in the next entry. Look out Kai, I'm keeping you in the circle.

Quote of the day : We had dessert at Gelare and she paid! YES!