“Ancient Four-Legged Whale Unveiled: What Secrets Does This 40-Million-Year-Old Creature Hold?”
G. Bianucci/Current BiologyAll the fossilized bones unearthed at Playa Media Luna.
Besides the four legs themselves, the location of the animal’s hip bones likewise pointed toward a land-specific gait it had developed over time.
In terms of its aquatic capabilities, the size of the fingers and feet indicated that this animal’s appendages were most likely webbed. While the physical characteristics and multi-environment attributes of this discovered species are certainly stunning, its age revealed even further areas of interest for scientists.
Ancient, four-legged whales like these are believed to have reached South America by crossing the Atlantic Ocean’s southern half from the Western coast of Africa. Not only would westward currents have given them a boost, but both continents were only around half as far apart back then as they are today.
Alberto GennariThe four-legged whale crossed the Atlantic and reached South America about 42.6 million years ago.
Upon arrival, the Peregocetus likely made Pacific waters their hub — particularly along the Peruvian coast — before making their trek to North America. For Erich Fitzgerald, the senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at Museums Victoria in Melbourne, these revelations are colossal.
“This is a genuinely surprising discovery based on a relatively complete fossil skeleton that shows that really ancient whales capable of swimming and walking made it to the Americas much earlier than previously thought,” he said.
“It has really intriguing implications for our understanding of the evolution of whales. There may be this whole chapter of the whale evolution story that happened in South America and elsewhere on the coastlines of the Pacific and southern oceans that we didn’t know about.”
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