Fossils Indicate Whales Existed Earlier Than Previously Thought

Paleontologists digging in the Himalayan foothills have found a fossilized jawbone and teeth that suggest that whales originated 3.5 million years earlier than scientists had thought. The new whale species, named Himalayecetus subathuensis, is about 53.5 million years old, scientists from India and the United States report in Tuesday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Previous fossils have suggested that the first whales to evolve were amphibious, resting and reproducing on land and dipping into oceans or rivers to feed on fish. The new species supports that theory, both because of the fossils’ location and because the teeth contained heavy deposits of oxygen isotopes characteristic of land respiration and ingestion of marine water, they wrote.

Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II