[x]

Browse More Like This

More from *tiffanyturrill

View Gallery

Featured in Groups:

#Domain-of-Darwin
Evolutionists of DeviantArt

#Creaturecreators
art for creature's sake

#Origin-of-Mammals

#Extinct-Fauna

#Exp-Marine-Mammals

#Ars-Fatalis
Prehistoric Art with Bite

#Odontocetes

#Theistic-Evolution
Let the Earth bring forth...

Show all (9)

Details

Submitted: January 18, 2011
Image Size: 2.6 MB
Resolution: 1500×3231

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 223
Favourites: 2,184 [who?]
Views: 48,531 (17 today)
Downloads: 2,990 (0 today)

[x]

Prehistoric Whale Extravaganzaby *tiffanyturrill

Digital Art / Drawings & Paintings / Animals

hoo! I have so many things in the works right now! But I wanted to leave you with a little tidbit ... WHALES! Kinda.
They're the only surviving remnant of carnivorous hoofed ungulates - their closest remaining relatives are actually hippos and pigs (Artiodactyla)).

Cats and dogs were getting more badass around this period and they did "carnivore" better (notice the generalized grippy fangs pointed in all directions, as opposed to the cutting, gripping, and slicing teeth of cats and dogs).

There were several families of hoofed meat-eaters and the only one that really has descendants today is whales.
They had to become not-themselves to survive! 0_o it blows my mind.

I'm participating in the Games We Play show ([link]), and I decided that everyone needed to know what ancient whales looked like! But which proto-whale to pick? There's so many awesome ones! (I threw in Indohyus just for lulz, there's some discrepancy still about which line directly led to cetaceans, and it's thought they behaved like semiaquatic Water Chevrotains ([link]))

The winner was Pakicetus, but before beginning the final painting, I reconstructed (kinda) a bunch of my favorites.
Aren't they cute?! :3

So far Pakicetus (whale of Pakistan) is the closest group-ancestor we've found, but notice already he has the long snout of a fish eater, and the eye sockets rotated to the top of his head for looking around while swimming! SO EXCITING.