The Evolution Of Animal Species
Although it took time, researchers came to the conclusion that animals were all common due to the fact we all use the same set of genes to build our bodies. In other words, the whole animal spectrum has been fed by the same set of genes. This film explains how whales actually evolved from land mammals and how we can use their movements as evidence. Whales are one of the most fascinating creatures living on this Earth. Whales share a distinct feature with humans, our brains are very large and complicated. Philip Gingerich, a geologist and paleontologist who has no knowledge of whales, working in Pakistan he found a discovery of a lifetime.
What he found at first looked to be a wolf, but with further examination done, he came to the conclusion that the ear resembled a whale. He continued his research in the Sahara Desert where he found numerous whale bones, specifically he found yet another huge discovery, leg bones in whales. They discovered that whales were once four-legged animals, they compared their findings with a wolf-like mammal called Sinonyx. Over time these mammals evolved into the whales we now see today, it also revealed another discovery of whale evolution which showed the gradual migration nostrils which help them breath under water. But this was not the only evidence of whale evolution, we are able to see it by examining how they move through the water. Although whales look like fish, they do not move the same way through the water. The research done by Frank Fish showed that whales use their spines in the same way otters, and also land mammals do. This led to the conclusion that whales took with them their ancestral way of moving. Animals appeared on earth in a short burst about a half a billion years ago, and scientist called this the Cambrian Explosion. The sudden burst of diversity ultimately led to the term Cambrian Explosion, but it still is a mystery of how all these animals appeared out of nowhere. The animals that appeared were nothing like the animals today, they were alien-like. This is the time where our history unfolded. But what we learned from this was that the genes were getting tinkered with to create all animals.
The human transformation began when our ancestors came out of the trees on to the land. When we got to use our hands, it made many more possibilities for transporting things like tools and food. Research done on lemurs led us to the theory that when we were evolving we might have been able to move more like monkeys and even have the ability to make big leaps. As we know chimpanzee is our closest living relative with us sharing much of the same DNA. If we look at the skeleton of each animal, we can point out minor differences because of evolution. Evolution worked the same way with us than it did with every other species so we are here through a series of chance coincidence.
