I am still trying to get my head around the fact that 9-million years ago not only did sharks and dolphins coexist, but that they are STILL HERE!Imagine how frightening it would be to go surfing at Malibu, second-point circa 9-million years ago? (That is if Malibu even existed. Maybe all of L.A. under water?)
The human race as we know it; (homo sapiens), has only been around about 200,000-years or so and we didn't really get anything going till about 3,500 years ago but dolphins and sharks were skirmishing all over creation.
From MSNBC:
Scientists investigated a well-preserved 9-foot-long dolphin discovered in the Piedmont region of northern Italy. From the remains, the researchers not only finger-pointed the attacker but also how the thrashing went down, suggesting the shark took advantage of the dolphin's blind spot."The skeleton lay unstudied in a museum in Torino for more than a century, but when I examined it, as part of a larger study of fossil dolphins, I noticed the bite marks on the ribs, vertebrae and jaws," recalled lead researcher Giovanni Bianucci at the University of Pisa in Italy.
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4 comments:
Nine million years is an impressive evolutionary run (and I think sharks have been around a lot longer than that) but think of the crocodiles, which have been around in pretty much their current form for at least 200 million years.
"if Malibu existed..." About 10,000 years ago, when the first Indians came to North America, Malibu was high and dry: sea level was about 500 feet lower than it is today.
WOW, to think 'Bu was once the top on mountain way inland is almost incomprehensible to me but it sure does illustrates just how short our lives are in this big movie.
Why did we grow and other stuff shrank? I will look it up.
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