Biology 11th Edition by Cecie Starr ,Ralph Taggart

تمرين 9

For some time, evolutionists accepted that the ancestors of whales were four-legged animals that walked on land, then took up life in water about 55 million years ago. Fossils reveal gradual changes in skeletal features that made an aquatic life possible. But which four-legged mammals were the ancestors
The answer recently came from Philip Gingerich and Iyad Zalmout. While digging for fossils in Pakistan, they found remains of early aquatic whales. Intact, sheeplike ankle bones and archaic whale skull bones were in the same fossilized skeletons (Figures 17.4 and 17.24).
Ankle bones of fossilized, early whales from Pakistan have the same form as the unique ankle bones of extinct and modern artiodactyls. Modern cetaceans no longer have even a remnant of an ankle bone. Here is evidence of an evolutionary link between certain aquatic mammals and a major group of mammals on land.
The radiometrically dated fossils are real. Yet no one was around to witness this transitional time. Because we did not see ancient life evolving, do you think there can be absolute proof of evolution in the distant past Is the circumstantial evidence of fossil morphology enough to convince you that the theory is not wrong