Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2006

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Claim CC216.1:

Source:

Response:

1. The transitional sequence from a land mammal to whales is quite robust. See Babinski (2003) or Zimmer (1998) for pictures of some of these.
   
   
   1. Pakicetus inachus: latest Early Eocene (Gingerich et al. 1983; Thewissen and Hussain 1993).
   2. Ambulocetus natans: Early to Middle Eocene, above Pakicetus. It had short front limbs and hind legs adapted for swimming; undulating its spine up and down helped its swimming. It apparently could walk on land as well as swim (Thewissen et al. 1994).
   3. Indocetus ramani: earliest Middle Eocene (Gingerich et al. 1993).
   4. Dorudon: the dominant cetacean of the late Eocene. Their tiny hind limbs were not involved in locomotion.
   5. Basilosaurus: middle Eocene and younger. A fully aquatic whale with structurally complete legs (Gingerich et al. 1990).
   6. an early baleen whale with its blowhole far forward and some structural features found in land animals but not later whales (Stricherz 1998).
   
   The whale's closest living relative is the hippopotamus. A fossil group known as anthracotheres links hippos with whales (Boisserie et al. 2005). The common ancestor of whales and hippos likely was a primitive artiodactyl (cloven-hoofed mammal); ankle bones from the primitive whales Artiocetus and Rodhocetus show distinctive artiodactyl traits (Gingerich et al. 2001).

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