Presenting Puijila Darwini!

Via Pharyngula.

A 23 million year old fossil from the Canadian Arctic has been discovered that has scientists buzzing!  This is a fossil remnant of a transitional mammal that has not been seen before.  It looked a lot like a seal except for one important difference.  Instead of flippers it had front legs!  It was a walking seal!  This is an artist’s representation of how it might have looked:

image A website about Puijila Darwini has been setup here.

The importance of Puijila is that it represents an evolutionary link between a mammal that once walked on land and one that now swims in the sea.

It represents a completely new genus and species, so the scientists who discovered it had to come up with an original name.  Puijila is a derivation of a word in the Inuktitut language, which is spoken by the Native Americans who occupy Nunavut, the area of Canada where the fossil was found.  It is a word that is generally used to refer to a young seal and is intended to honor the people of Nunavut whose support has been critical in to the success of archeological research in the area.

And don’t ask me how it’s pronounced.  This site has a pronounciation guide plus lots more information.  The Darwini piece you guys should be able to figure out.

Isn’t this stuff just so much more interesting than reading about the blatherings of Those Darn Republicans?  Some days, anyway.

Posted by marindenver on 04/24/09 at 04:52 PM • Permalink

Categories: CrittersMessylaneousPoliticsNutters

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It looks an awful lot like an otter to me.

Yet one more example of the transitional fossils that supposedly don’t exist.

Looks like a Portugese Water Boarder Collie

one more example of the transitional fossils that supposedly don’t exist.


And the irony is that every fossil is a transitional fossil

Finally!  A Canadian water dog refutes the creationist lie!  Augustine could have been saved years of grief and inner turmoil had he just been made aware of the transitional fossil.  Poor bastard.

Speaking of dead or dying mammals:

http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/my-two-cents/

Looks like the party’s just about over.  Guess it’s time to come up with a new nick.

Comment by Pumalicious! on 04/24/09 at 11:28 PM

It looks an awful lot like an otter to me.

What a great comment because the literature says these animals are closely related to today’s otters.  If I could start all over again, I think I would go into this kind of anthropology stuff - it is so, so fascinating.

So after lungfish went to all that trouble, hauling themselves up onto land, stretching out their cartilaginous notochord and somehow overcoming an ossified braincase, you mean to tell me that puijila darwini threw all that away and headed right back for the water?

No wonder lungfish are bitter.

you mean to tell me that puijila darwini threw all that away and headed right back for the water?

LOL, along with the whales, manatees and dolphins.  There’s also an intriguing theory that people were headed that way at one point but turned around and headed back to the plains.  Explains our lack of full body fur, poking up nose, etc.  Who knows, but the speculation is fascinating.

Explains our lack of full body fur, poking up nose, etc.

Then what explains Mr. Polly?

There’s also an intriguing theory that people were headed that way at one point but turned around and headed back to the plains.

But that giant black monolith just appeared out of nowhere, and it looked so cool!  You can’t blame our ancestors for blowing off a day at the beach so they could bask in its Promethean greatness.

Great stuff!  Thanks for posting.

Woah.  I was posting about the Puijilia Darwini article being great stuff…I love stories about fascinating discoveries like that.

Then I viewed the link from Pumalicious:

Speaking of dead or dying mammals:

http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/my-two-cents/

Looks like the party’s just about over.  Guess it’s time to come up with a new nick.

This story of the slow (but long predicted) death of the PUMA movement is worthy of a blog post of its own.

Comment by G on 04/25/09 at 09:55 AM

I think people are just too fascinated right now watching this slow motion freight train crash play itself out.

But Sarah Palin told me that the earth is only 6000 years old.  Someone is lying here or that picture requires some fig-leaf covered humans or at least a Noah’s arc with someone flipping this little creature the ‘the bird’ while they sail off to the holy land

Speaking of dead or dying mammals:

http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/my-two-cents/

This is a sign that Riverdaughter is about to go postal - her last shred of self identity is gone - and she is now ready to take as many others with her before she goes.

Comment by Bruno on 04/25/09 at 03:07 PM

What really shocked me was to see that the most insane and rabid of the PUMAs has left the fold…

jenniforhillary, on April 24th, 2009 at 8:10 pm Said:

myiq2xu,

I don’t know you, and I doubt you know me at all. I read your posts and your blogs. I like what you say. I love some of what you say. I left Puma a few days ago because it had already left me. All of it makes me sad. sort of like life.

I hope you keep blogging, because sometimes if you can’t redefine reality, you can at least escape momentarily to something better, and sometimes it is here.

Quite frankly, I expected her to be the last one standing, ending up in some horrible Ruby-Ridge one woman blaze-out - surrounded by a stockpile of guns and kittens and ammo, pouring gasoline all around her while screaming obscenities in a furious wide-eyed rage of spittle.  Then, with one final PUMA HAKA, she lights her match…

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