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Topic: Mesonychid

	Evolution of cetaceans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Therefore, a debate arose as to whether hippopotami (hippos) or mesonychids were the closest relatives of the whales.
		In other words, the proto-whales were early artiodactyls that retained aspects of their mesonychid ancestry (such as the triangular teeth) which modern artiodactyls have since lost.
		An interesting implication is that the earliest ancestors of all hoofed mammals were probably at least partly carnivorous or scavengers, today's artiodactyls and perissodactyls only having switched to a plant diet later in their evolution.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Evolution_of_cetaceans (740 words)

	The Evolution of Whales (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Mesonychids are just one of several whole lines of early mammals which are now completely extinct, and have never been seen alive by modern man. So we don't have their DNA on file.
		Pakicetus lead to another Mesonychid, Ambulocetus, "the walking whale", which is believed to be the beginning of Cetacea, because (apart from the length of the legs) its skeleton already looks like that of a whale.
		All of these show a sequence leading from hoof-toed land carnivores to fully marine mammals, in which the forelimbs are flippered but still retain all the bones of their fingers, something that should not be in an animal specially-created to be an obligate sea-dweller.
	home.comcast.net /~aronra/CetaceanEvolution.html (569 words)

	Whale - LearnThis.Info Enclyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		However, recent discoveries in Pakistan have managed to solve many of these mysteries, and it is now possible to see several stages in the transition of the ceteceans from land to sea.
		Before the recent discoveries in Pakistan, one popular theory of cetecean evolution was that whales were related to the Mesonychids, an extinct order of carnivorous ungulates (hoofed animals), which looked rather like wolves with hooves.
		Therefore, a debate arose as to whether hippos or mesonychids were the closest relatives if the whales.
	encyclopedia.learnthis.info /w/wh/whale.html (1830 words)

	- Overselling of Whale Evolution -
		It is hypothesized that some mesonychid species began feeding on creatures inhabiting shallow waters and that over many generations the selective pressures created by this change of diet transformed one or more of the species into an amphibious archaeocete.
		No one has nominated any of these genera for ancestor of the archaeocetes, and thus mesonychids continue to be classified in the more technical literature as a "sister group" to the archaeocetes.
		The reason evolutionists are confident that mesonychids gave rise to archaeocetes, despite the inability to identify any species in the actual lineage, is that known mesonychids and archaeocetes have some similarities.
	www.trueorigins.org /whales.asp (3394 words)

	Paleocene mammals of the world
		The cheek teeth of mesonychids were modified for cutting meat, but the shearing mechanism was very different from - and obviously less effective than - the carnassial structure that carnivores, creodonts and carnivorous marsupials acquired.
		In fact, mesonychids may have used their teeth mainly for grasping chunks of meat, which were torn off with movements of the head while the feet anchored the prey.
		Mesonychids probably originated in Asia, where the most primitive mesonychid, Yangtanlestes, is known from the earlier part of the Paleocene.
	www.paleocene-mammals.de /predators.htm (2782 words)

	Nature, "Evolution: In search of the whales' sisters" March 16, 2000 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		If hippos and whales are sister taxa to the exclusion of mesonychids (as molecular studies suggest), then cetacean adaptations such as underwater nursing of offspring and nearly hairless skin could have originated in the most recent common ancestor of both groups (Fig.
		Alternatively, if mesonychids and cetaceans are sister taxa (as the best morphological evidence has it), then the aquatic adaptations of hippos and living cetaceans must be convergences that occurred well after the split of their respective lineages.
		From this, O'Leary and Geisler conclude that artiodactyls are a clade to the exclusion of cetaceans.
	www.stephenjaygould.org /ctrl/news/file017.html (1206 words)

	Whale Transition
		The earliest known cetacean, Pakicetus, demonstrates a mixture of traits which are unique to the terrestrial Mesonychids as well as marine whales, and indicates that the cetaceans are descended from the Mesonychid carnivores.
		In terms of their skeletal structure, however, whales are distinguished from the similar Mesonychids using five basic anatomical characteristics: (1) all of the incisors are parallel with the tooth row, (2) the medial lamboidal crest is semicircular, (3) the nasals are retracted, (4) the protocones are small, and (5) the accessory cusps are large.
		Beginning with terrestrial Mesonychids, we can trace the path through Ambulocetus, which was a terrestrial animal that spent much time in the water, to Basilosaurus, which had nearly lost its functional legs, to the later Archaeocetes, which possessed no external legs at all and were specialized for a deep-sea life, to the modern whales.
	www.fsteiger.com /whales.html (2611 words)

	Rodhocetus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Rodhocetus balochistanensis is in fact believed to demonstrate a direct evolutionary link to artiodactyls (modern examples of which are hippopotamuses and pigs).
		This has largely overturned previous fossil-based theories that whales were directly descended from mesonychids, though it matches studies of the genetic relations between whales and other animals.
		The claim is based on the structure of the ankle bones of this species, which shows peculiarites known only in artiodactyls, and their ear bones, which are particularly like those of modern whales.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Rodhocetus (244 words)

	Creation Matters May/June 1998, Vol. 3, No. 3
		Mesonychids simply are assumed to have been ancestral on the basis of some general similarities with archaeocetes and for lack of a better candidate.
		[1] It is hypothesized that some mesonychid species began feeding on creatures inhabiting shallow waters and that over many generations the selective pressures created by this change of diet transformed one or more of the species into an amphibious archaeocete.
		One writer went so far as to pronounce that “the evolutionary case is now closed.” [3] The purpose of this article is to suggest that the fossil evidence for the mesonychid-to-whale transition is not persuasive, let alone conclusive.
	www.creationresearch.org /creation_matters/98/cm9805.html (4680 words)

	Paleocene Eocene Diatryma Gastornis Moertherium Barylambda Uintatherium Eobasileus Andrewsarchus Brontotherium
		The mesonychids were the first mammalian meat eaters and flourished until the Oligocene when creodonts and true carnivores replaced them.
		Most mesonychids were the size and shape of large wolves or bears, although some were as small as foxes.
		In addition, some paleontologists speculate that mesonychids were less efficient at eating meat than creodonts or carnivores, since the blunt, rounded cusps of mesonychid molars never developed the specialized, scissor like shearing edges found in more specialized carnivorous mammals.
	www.dinosaurcollector.150m.com /Paleocene-Eocene.htm (1388 words)

	Stephen Caesar's Articles
		These tests suggested that whales did not descend from mesonychids at all, but are members of a mammal family called the artiodactyls, which include hippopotami.
		First, the similarities between mesonychids and early whales do not automatically have to be interpreted as "convergent evolution," but could just as well be credited to Intelligent Design.
		Second, evolutionists are now falling into the same trap that they fell into with their mesonychid theory: just because two extinct creatures, Pakicetus and Ichthyolestes, were highly similar to whales, it does not necessarily mean that they are the evolutionary ancestors of whales, but merely that they are related to them.
	www.creationism.org /caesar/WhaleEvol.htm (561 words)

	DRC - Atantic Bottlenose Dolphin Physiology (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		One theory suggests that cetaceans are descendants of the Mesonychid, an animal that lived about 55 million years ago.
		It is possible that the Mesonychid started spending profressively mor time in the shallow waters of the Tethys Sea foraging for fish and other marine life.
		The Mesonychid may have also been forced into shallow waters due to an increase in surrounding predators or because of a climatic change.
	dolphins.org /Learn/lmm-phys.htm (3653 words)

	Glossary
		Mesonychid: Mesonychids were hoofed, hyena-like, land-dwelling mammals that may have been an ancestor of the whales.
		It had pointed teeth like mesonychid and a pinched brain case like Ambulocetus.
		It also had a water-adapted inner ear but still had four limbs (probably paddle-shaped) and may have spent part of its life on land.
	darkwing.uoregon.edu /~arice1/whale_planet/Glossary.htm (1144 words)

	Evolution Of Whales
		This is a Mesonychid, they were known as fish hunters that had long-narrow jaws, filled with pointed teeth.
		Toothed whales and mesonychids share numerous similarities in their skull and jaw.
		The Ambulocetus were believed to be the size of a modern Sea Lion, weighing about 650 pounds.They have the same teeth as the mammal Mesonychids and had a locomotion on both land and water.
	geology.wcedu.pima.edu /~gotero/webpage7.html (215 words)

	The Cryptid Zoo: Mesonychids (Hoofed Predators)
		Scientists are beginning to think that perhaps mesonychids were not direct ancestors to today's whales and dolphins, rather that mesonychids were close relatives of the actual direct ancestors.
		In other words, the mesonychids were not the only ungulate predators, they were just the most famous group of ungulate predators.
		In contrast to this, Europe is the last place we would expect to see a surviving mesonychid, but a strange hoofed predator was the object of an extended scare in France, this creature was dubbed the Beast of Gevaudan and was thought to be a strange sort of werewolf in local folklore.
	www.newanimal.org /meso.htm (435 words)

	The Cetacea were thought to be most closely related to the Perissodactyla or the oddtoed u (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		In 1985-88, Eocene whales (archaeocetes) were found in which the skull and dental structure was very like the mesonychid condylarths (primative artiodactyls).
		This is very similar to the condition in mesonychid condylarths and paraxonic artiodactylans.
		Thus the fossil record confirms the inferences gained from molecular data on the relationship between the cetaceans and the ungulates.
	www.skepticfiles.org /evolut/whale03e.htm (204 words)

	Experimental Support for Regarding Functional Classes of Proteins to be Highly Isolated from Each Other: Behe, Michael
		Underneath the dog was the caption "Mesonychid, the ancestor of the whales".
		It seems like quite a coincidence that of all the intermediate species that must have existed between the mesonychid and whale, only species that are very similar to the end species have been found.
		When a skeptic sees a drawing of Mesonychid next to the Zeuglodon whale he intuitively realizes that the transformation is highly improbable.
	www.arn.org /docs/behe/mb_smu1992.htm (4290 words)

	Philip D. Gingerich
		These are the first early archaeocetes to preserve ankle bones in association with skulls and skeletons, and the first to show that early whales had distinctively artiodactyl-like ankles.
		Thus the earlier idea that whales evolved from mesonychid condylarths is no longer tenable and we expect that the ancestor was instead something like an anthracotheriid artiodactyl (e.g., Elomeryx in Fig.
		From the point of view of the fossil record, the 'sister-group' relationship of whales and hippos promoted by molecular phylogeneticists is now plausible, though still tenuous and unproven.
	www-personal.umich.edu /~gingeric/PDGwhales/Whales.htm (3057 words)

	Zimmer Chapter Seven (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Interested in the early diversification of modern placentals -- Wyoming primates, mesonychids, rodents, artiodactyls.
		Beds investigated formed the leading edge of the Indian subcontinent -- mudstones and limestones -- coastal (dry land, riverine, lagoonal).
		Among the remains found was a mesonychid tooth -- in marine deposits.
	www.ucalgary.ca /~zoology/Zool571/ch7.htm (604 words)

	Beast of Gevaudan: Demon wolf or what? Your thoughts!!! - Above Top Secret Conspiracy Community (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		One branch of the ungulate family, called the mesonychids, were predators.
		That region of the world is where many of the world's new animals are discovered, and islands are often known to preserve living fossils.
		The mesonychid has the large snout short and sharp ears the large cow like size,large paws and those distinctive coat linings.
	www.abovetopsecret.com /forum/thread139431/pg1 (2174 words)

	Someplace Somewhere - No proof of evolution = proof of God? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Hapalodectes or a very similar mesonychid (early Eocene, around 55 Ma) -- A small mesonychid with very narrow shearing molars, a distinctively shaped zygomatic arch, and peculiar vascularized areas between the molars.
		These late Eocene legged whales still had mesonychid-like teeth, and in fact, some of the whale fossils were first mis-identified as mesonychids when only the teeth were found.
		Note that this stage of aquatic adaptation was attained about 15 million years after the first terrestrial mesonychids.
	www.someplacesomewhere.com /topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=18899 (3031 words)

	The Origin of Whales and the Power of Independent Evidence
		Although there are two modern suborders of whales (Odontocetes and Mysticetes), this discussion will focus on the origin of the whales as an order of mammals, and set aside the issues related to the diversification into suborders.
		These features were atypical of mesonychids, indicating that Sinonyx was already developing the adaptations that later became the basis of the whales' specialized way of life.
		However, the ilium of the pelvis was short compared to that of the mesonychids, making for a less powerful muscular thrust from the hip during walking, and the femur was about 1/3 shorter than Ambulocetus’s, so Rodhocetus probably could not get around as well on land as its predecessors (Gingerich and others 1994).
	www.talkorigins.org /features/whales (6397 words)

	In A Whale of Trouble
		Mesonychids that lived near rivers or at the edge of the sea waded into the water to catch fish.
		One of these mesonychids evolved into Pakicetus, which evolved into the partly aquatic Ambulocetus, which became the mostly aquatic Rodhocetus, which evolved in one or more steps into the entirely aquatic Basilosaurus which was direct ancestor of modern whales.
		Although no post-cranial bones of Pakicetus were found, it seemed logical to assume, from the teeth and ear structure, that the animal spent a great deal of time in shallow water looking for food, but returned to the land to rest, somewhat like a modern sea lion.
	www.ridgenet.net /~do_while/sage/v3i11f.htm (4547 words)

	Whale Evolution- Enchanted Learning Software
		Fossil remains indicate that whales evolved from hoofed land mammals - perhaps the shore-dwelling, hyena-like Mesonychid that started a returned, bit by bit, to the sea roughly 50 million years ago.
		Another possible step in whale ancestry is the otter-like Ambulocetus, an extinct mammal the size of a sea lion, 10 feet (3 m) long and about 650 pounds.
		The later Pakicetus, a primitive whale with pointed teeth like Mesonychid and a pinched brain case like Ambulocetus, had a water-adapted inner ear but still had four limbs.
	www.enchantedlearning.com /subjects/whales/allabout/Evol.shtml (481 words)

	[No title]
		It was thought that they arose from land-dwelling mesonychids that gradually lost their hind legs and became aquatic.
		Evolutionary theory predicted that they must have gone through a stage where they had were partially aquatic but still had hind legs, but there were no known intermediate fossils.
		Although the snout is elongate, the skull shape resembles that of the mesonychids, especially _Hapalodectes_...." * _Pakicetus_ (early-mid Eocene, 52 Ma) -- The oldest fossil whale known.
	saturniancosmology.org /files/evolution/part2b.txt (4103 words)

	Zimmer Chapter Eight (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		The transition from mesonychid to whale in an energetic/functional morphological context.
		Frank Fish -- study of functional morphology and physiology of swimming mammals.
		Short front legs with flat hands; hind legs with broad paddles; skull with teeth similar to those of mesonychids; ear with S-shaped impression.
	www.ucalgary.ca /~zoology/Zool571/ch8.htm (727 words)

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