While I was reading articles on the internet, this statement took me by surprise.
"Mammals evolved on the land".
I knew that. Didn’t I? To be honest I’d never given it any thought. Which is likely why the statement took me by surprise.
But of course they did.
However my eyes are newly open and I’m looking at life kind from a different place after I became aware – the other day - that there is scientific evidence to prove that predecessors of whales (and dolphins actually) once lived outside of the oceans.
Although all along there was a clue to this - in the dictionary.
Possibly any dictionary will offer a similar definition, and in the Oxford it says, besides humans, mammals "include dogs, rabbits and whales".
Keeping in mind the assertion that mammals evolved on the land, there is an implied message in that short list that the biology that gives (humans, dogs, rabbits), whales - and dolphins - their shared "mammalian-ship", today, was evolved on land. By which we can infer that those creatures that predeceased whales (and dolphins) were once land mammals.
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