Strange Creature?

Unbeliever

Unbeliever

New member
According to several comments on the page and some links to pictures of skeletons, it is most likely a beluga or killer whale.

You know, bob, that whales have many vestigial organs, right? Now I wonder why god would put those in there.

From http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/

The vestigial features of whales tell us two things. They tell us that whales, like so many other organisms, have features that make no sense from a design perspective - they have no current function, they require energy to produce and maintain, and they may be deleterious to the organism. They also tell us that whales carry a piece of their evolutionary past with them, highlighting a history of a terrestrial ancestry.

Modern whales often retain rod-like vestiges of pelvic bones, femora, and tibiae, all embedded within the musculature of their body walls. These bones are more pronounced in earlier species and less pronounced in later species. As the example of Basilosaurus shows, whales of intermediate age have intermediate-sized vestigial pelves and rear limb bones.

Whales also retain a number of vestigial structures in their organs of sensation. Modern whales have only vestigial olfactory nerves. Furthermore, in modern whales the auditory meatus (the exterior opening of the ear canal) is closed. In many, it is merely the size of a thin piece of string, about 1 mm in diameter, and often pinched off about midway. All whales have a number of small muscles devoted to nonexistent external ears, which are apparently a vestige of a time when they were able to move their ears - a behavior typically used by land animals for directional hearing.

The diaphragm in whales is vestigial and has very little muscle. Whales use the outward movement of the ribs to fill their lungs with air. Finally, Gould (1983) reported several occurrences of captured sperm whales with visible, protruding hind limbs. Similarly, dolphins have been spotted with tiny pelvic fins, although they probably were not supported by limb bones as in those rare sperm whales. And some whales, such as belugas, possess rudimentary ear pinnae - a feature that can serve no purpose in an animal with no external ear and that can reduce the animal's swimming efficiency by increasing hydrodynamic drag while swimming.

Although this list is by no means exhaustive, it is nonetheless clear that the whales have a wealth of vestigial features left over from their terrestrial ancestors.
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Gerald

Gerald

Resident Fiend
Most likely a beluga.

:: brandishes a large mallet to keep the cryptozoologists out of the room ::
 
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Stripe

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
looks like one of the good guys from 'the dark crystal' ...

what were they called again?
 
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