Kind: captions
Language: en
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in
1978 Philip went to Pakistan to search
for prehistoric
horses instead his team Unearthed the
remains of a mysterious
creature the team named the strange
animal
pacus it's about 50 million years
old when Philip took a closer look he
spotted something unexpected in the
creature's ear so when you look at this
covering bone covering the ear it's very
dense it's thickened it has a sloping
surface on this side and in modern
mammals those are only found in whales
and why to enable them to hear in
water this ear bone unique to whales and
dolphins helps them locate the direction
of sounds underwater it's proof of pacus
pedigree this bone was the key to
understanding that pacus is a
whale well that made it the oldest
fossil whale anybody ever
found it was
groundbreaking and as they discovered
more pacus fossils they realized
something
else this whale could
walk pacus is an animal a little bigger
than a
wolf probably built of approximately
like a wolf it has teeth like a
carnivorous
mammal but unlike a wolf that has claws
on the ends of its toes pacus had tiny
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Hooves pacus was a carnivore that hunted
on
land but its Anatomy suggests it had
adapted to living in water
its long snout full of sharp teeth also
allowed it to probe shallow riverbeds
for
prey its eyes were squeezed onto the top
of its head so it could keep watch while
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swimming and some scientists think
markings on its foot bones are evidence
it had webbing between its
toes allowing it to hunt underwater
and of course it didn't take long until
they moved into the water more
permanently pacus marks the beginning of
an eventful Journey from land animals to
today's gigantic whales