How do you get this…
For a closer look at Orcinus orca click here.
or this…
For a closer look at Balaenoptera acutorostrata, the Minke Whale, click here.
From this?
For a closer look at Pakicetus click here.
It took a long time and it’s going to take a number of posts.
We’re back in time a little over 50 million years. The dinosaurs have been gone for only 13 or 14 million years. Gone too are the great marine lizards. Along the shoreline of the shallow Tethys Sea, on the south coast of the landmass of Eurasia, mammals are turning their interest to an abundant realm long denied them. In nature, no available resource is ever ignored for long, and a coyote-sized animal named Pakicetus is taking the first tentative steps into the warm waters of streams and deltas in its (uppermost middle) Eocene world.
It had a long, narrow snout and brain case, close-set eyes, a robust sagittal crest, and the heavy tail of earlier archaic mammals. It also had fairly long (for the time) legs ending in small hooves. What makes Pakicetus interesting to us here however, can’t be seen in my painting. The skull has an ear region that is highly unusual in shape, and resembles the same area only in the skulls of modern and fossil whales. This feature is diagnostic for cetaceans, is found in all cetaceans, and in no other animal. Pakicetus certainly could swim, but not strongly, and perhaps foraged as a wader, or moved along the streambed like a modern hippo, feeding on crustaceans and other aquatic animals using its long vibrissae- covered snout to feel its way through the shallows.
Even earlier, lost for now in the mist-shrouded era of the Paleocene, an archaic ungulate ancestor gave rise to animals that would eventually lead to artiodactyls (even-toed hoofed animals with incredible modern diversity including; camels, deer, cattle, goats, sheep, antelope, pigs and hippos), mesonychids (carnivorous, or at least omnivorous, hoofed mammals, all now extinct), and cetaceans. The timing of exactly what diverged when is still being researched and debated. I’ll have a number of diagrams, cladograms and trees up in the near future.
As an artist and not a scientist, I’m going to leave questions of timing up to the molecular biologists and paleontologists involved, and simply supply the illustrations. I’ve been fortunate to participate in a peripheral way in a number of projects by portraying many of the creatures in the evolutionary transition back to aquatic life. You’ll be seeing most of them here in the next few months. I might even have a guest post or two from the scientists I’ve worked with.
A note on the restoration of Pakicetus
Unless you find that once-in-a-lifetime, fully articulated skeleton with skin, scale, fur or feather impressions, the further back you go in time, the more difficult the process becomes of bringing an extinct animal to life. Hopefully, any guesswork involved is educated guesswork based on comparative anatomy, but Pakicetus, as portrayed here, is based on a skull and non-articulated post-cranial material. That means it’s a composite. The bones are from a number of individuals. As more fossils are found and described, Pakicetus’ look will change. My take on any fossil-based animal is just that, my take. You can only be true to the fossil evidence you have presented to you and then try to make informed decisions about surface features and color based on possible relatives (or ecological equivalents) of your subject that are alive today and the type of environment the animal lived in.
The one thing I always do, is try to look at each animal as a completely formed individual. What I mean by that in this case, is that I didn’t think of Pakicetus as a “future whale” or an early step toward whaleness - even though it certainly was from our viewpoint. Any naturalist transported into the past would see Pakicetus as a successful creature in the world of its time. Changing conditions, differential survival, and genetic mutation would do their work, but Pakicetus lived and breathed and foraged and mated and died a complete creature.
For a closer look at Lagenorhynchus acutus, the Atlantic White-sided Dolphin, click here.
This little white-sided Dolphin - a fast, acrobatic, and conspicuous resident of the North Atlantic - is not an “end” result, but simply a glorious, present-day manifestation of Darwin’s final words in The Origin of Species: “…endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”
November 22nd, 2006 at 2:01 pm
This damn post has taken the better part of two days to post up properly. I’m still working on it, so bear with me. Two power outages, a dozen WordPress “Timed Out”s, and html hell and it’s still not right…aurghhhh!!!!!
November 22nd, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Jeez, it’s beautiful, though.
November 22nd, 2006 at 8:29 pm
Beautiful, indeed. Looking forward to seeing whatever you have to add.
And welcome back!
November 22nd, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Gorgeous!!!!
November 22nd, 2006 at 9:51 pm
What wondrous turns nature takes! I never cease to be amazed. Who says that life without the certainty of a God isn’t miraculous?
November 22nd, 2006 at 10:06 pm
This is probably one of my favorite stories regarding evolution, so poetic and amazing, and now it is beautifully illustrated. Thank you, and happy Thanksgiving!
November 22nd, 2006 at 11:58 pm
Worth waiting for, and I wish you easier going with the next posts. Your prose is a good match for your paintings, too.
Happy TG to you!
November 23rd, 2006 at 12:38 am
I, too, have bookmarked this site and am looking forward to more. I took my cub scouts to an aquatic museum this summer. They have the skeleton of a whale suspended from the ceiling. I pointed to the vestigial pelvic(?) bones and, newly armed with Dawkins’s “The Ancestor’s Tale,” asked, “Does anyone know what those are? They’re vestigial pelvic bones. Whales didn’t start in the ocean like fish did, they evolved from a land mammal that hippos also descended from.” Some kids were fascinated, some kids were thinking about how their parents warned them about people who talk about evolution, and some parents avoided eye contact. Later, I looked for a website with pictures to show the cub scouts, but found nothing really that good. Until now.
Thank you thank you thank you.
Adam in So. Cal.
November 23rd, 2006 at 1:03 am
Fantastic pictures so far: I can’t wait to see what you do for Kutchicetus…
November 23rd, 2006 at 6:29 am
[...] If you’re interested in more about this fascinating progression, artist Olduvai George has started a series of posts on cetacean evolution at his blog (which I noticed courtesy of Pharyngula). He’s just posted the first in the series, with a nice commentary accompanied by his excellent illustrations. Take a look! [...]
November 23rd, 2006 at 11:43 am
This site is a wonderful opportunity to either see illustrated facts for the first time or, even better, take the info trip a second time but with excellent illustrations. Not to mention that the added dimension helps us vision-oriented and color-thirsty types with later recall too.
But best this time was that though I have heard about Pakicetus earlier I got a lot of new info on both it and its place in cetacean development. Nice!
November 23rd, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Glad you’re back.
I’ve been loving your stuff for a while, but this is my first fan letter.
November 23rd, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Forgot the trackback:
http://skepticalcommunity.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=245547#245547
November 23rd, 2006 at 2:30 pm
[...] ###: “How do you get this” [...]
November 23rd, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Happy Thanksgiving Carl, discovering your blog is one of the many things I am thankful for today. I usually do liberal politics on my blog, today I took a break from all that. For those of you-all not offended by partisan politics (after all, I found this place on a liberal blog) , check it out. Have a great holiday everyone.
http://geedubyablows.blogspot.com/2006/11/something-i-am-thankful-for-today.html
November 23rd, 2006 at 9:55 pm
Beautiful pictures! And what a great series of transitional forms to bring to life!
- Monado
November 24th, 2006 at 9:58 am
As always, beautiful and educational! It does not matter whether it is once a week, once a month, or whatever, it is always worth the wait! Thanks!
November 24th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
[...] Olduvai George is an artist, quite skilled in drawing (probably not the only talent). He has been working with some scientist, and he’s drawing up pictures of fossils. Interesting work. Something I would want to do… had I knew how to draw well. [...]
November 25th, 2006 at 4:59 am
[...] In other news… has anyone popped over to check Olduvai George? Carl’s put up the first of a series of posts on cetacean evolution. There’s been so much going on in this area in recent decades so this promises to be pretty cool. His illustrations are truly beautiful so pop over and have a look. [...]
November 27th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Another trackback in the ’skeptical forum complex’.
http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=80360#80360
November 30th, 2006 at 10:29 pm
Wonderfull site woderfull text and fantastic art!
First time here but I’m definately sticking around. Can’t wait more of those archaeocetes.
This blog makes me think of starting my own. Seems very nice way t opublish my own art and ideas.
December 2nd, 2006 at 7:43 am
[...] I wrote last week about the evolution of cetaceans (dolphins and whales); the entry was inspired by a post at Olduvai George with beautiful illustrations and descriptions of Pakicetus, a land mammal ancestral to cetaceans. He just posted the second in the series, this time focusing on Ambulocetus. [...]