Sunil Bajpai

Whales originated from aquatic artiodactyls in the Eocene epoch of India

Although the first ten million years of whale evolution are documented by a remarkable series of fossil skeletons, the link to the ancestor of cetaceans has been missing. It was known that whales are related to even-toed ungulates (artiodactyls), but until now no artiodactyls were morphologically close to early whales. Here we show that the Eocene south Asian raoellid artiodactyls are the sister group to whales. The raoellid Indohyus is similar to whales, and unlike other artiodactyls, in the structure of its ears and premolars, in the density of its limb bones and in the stable-oxygen-isotope composition of its teeth. We also show that a major dietary change occurred during the transition from artiodactyls to whales and that raoellids were aquatic waders. This indicates that aquatic life in this lineage occurred before the origin of the order Cetacea.

Vestibular evidence for the evolution of aquatic behaviour in early cetaceans

Early cetaceans evolved from terrestrial quadrupeds to obligate swimmers, a change that is traditionally studied by functional analysis of the postcranial skeleton. Here we assess the evolution of cetacean locomotor behaviour from an independent perspective by looking at the semicircular canal system, one of the main sense organs involved in neural control of locomotion. Extant cetaceans are found to be unique in that their canal arc size, corrected for body mass, is approximately three times smaller than in other mammals. This reduces the sensitivity of the canal system, most plausibly to match the fast body rotations that characterize cetacean behaviour. Eocene fossils show that the new sensory regime, incompatible with terrestrial competence, developed quickly and early in cetacean evolution, as soon as the taxa are associated with marine environments. Dedicated agile swimming of cetaceans thus appeared to have originated as a rapid and fundamental shift in locomotion rather than as the gradual transition suggested by postcranial evidence. We hypothesize that the unparalleled modification of the semicircular canal system represented a key ‘point of no return’ event in early cetacean evolution, leading to full independence from life on land.

Cretaceous Extinctions: Multiple Causes

![Figure][1] Deccan plateau basalts. Lava from Deccan volcanism formed distinct layering. CREDIT: GSFC/NASA In the Review “The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact and Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary” (P. Schulte et al. , 5 March, p. [1214][2]), the terminal Cretaceous

The oldest Asian record of Anthropoidea

Undisputed anthropoids appear in the fossil record of Africa and Asia by the middle Eocene, about 45 Ma. Here, we report the discovery of an early Eocene eosimiid anthropoid primate from India, named Anthrasimias, that extends the Asian fossil record of anthropoids by 9–10 million years. A phylogenetic analysis of 75 taxa and 343 characters of the skull, postcranium, and dentition of Anthrasimias and living and fossil primates indicates the basal placement of Anthrasimias among eosimiids, confirms the anthropoid status of Eosimiidae, and suggests that crown haplorhines (tarsiers and monkeys) are the sister clade of Omomyoidea of the Eocene, not nested within an omomyoid clade. Co-occurence of Anthropoidea, Omomyoidea, and Adapoidea makes it evident that peninsular India was an important center for the diversification of primates of modern aspect (euprimates) in the early Eocene. Adaptive reconstructions indicate that early anthropoids were mouse–lemur-sized (≈75 grams) and consumed a mixed diet of fruit and insects. Eosimiids bear little adaptive resemblance to later Eocene-early Oligocene African Anthropoidea.

Early Eocene warming events and the timing of terrestrial faunal exchange between India and Asia

The timing of initiation of continent-continent collision between Asia and India is controversial, but this major tectonic event is generally thought to have occurred in the Early Eocene, ca. 50 Ma. New and independent data from strontium isotopes, stable carbon isotopes, microfossil biostratigraphy, and mammal fossils from an Early Eocene marginal marine sequence (Cambay Shale) at the Vastan Lignite Mine of western India indicate that terrestrial faunal exchanges, and therefore continental collision, between Asia and the Indian subcontinent took place before 53.7 Ma. This age coincides with the second Eocene Thermal Maximum (ETM2), a short-lived warming episode that followed the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) ca. 55.5 Ma. Our data also document, for the first time, a clear record of the ETM2 in terrestrial organic material from a low-latitude site, which is represented by a 3‰−4‰ carbon isotope excursion (CIE) in lignite and dispersed organic carbon δ13C values. The magnitude of the CIE at this location closely matches that observed in marine cores from the Arctic Ocean, which supports an interpretation that this hyperthermal event, though of lower magnitude, was similar in character to that of the PETM, being a global phenomenon that affected both terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

From Land to Water: the Origin of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises

Cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) are an order of mammals that originated about 50 million years ago in the Eocene epoch. Even though all modern cetaceans are obligate aquatic mammals, early cetaceans were amphibious, and their ancestors were terrestrial artiodactyls, similar to small deer. The transition from land to water is documented by a series of intermediate fossils, many of which are known from India and Pakistan. We review raoellid artiodactyls, as well as the earliest families of cetaceans: pakicetids, ambulocetids, remingtonocetids, protocetids, and basilosaurids. We focus on the evolution of cetacean organ systems, as these document the transition from land to water in detail.

Eocene evolution of whale hearing

The origin of whales (order Cetacea) is one of the best-documented examples of macroevolutionary change in vertebrates. As the earliest whales became obligately marine, all of their organ systems adapted to the new environment. The fossil record indicates that this evolutionary transition took less than 15 million years, and that different organ systems followed different evolutionary trajectories. Here we document the evolutionary changes that took place in the sound transmission mechanism of the outer and middle ear in early whales. Sound transmission mechanisms change early on in whale evolution and pass through a stage (in pakicetids) in which hearing in both air and water is unsophisticated. This intermediate stage is soon abandoned and is replaced (in remingtonocetids and protocetids) by a sound transmission mechanism similar to that in modern toothed whales. The mechanism of these fossil whales lacks sophistication, and still retains some of the key elements that land mammals use to hear airborne sound.

Sound Transmission in Archaic and Modern Whales: Anatomical Adaptations for Underwater Hearing

The whale ear, initially designed for hearing in air, became adapted for hearing underwater in less than ten million years of evolution. This study describes the evolution of underwater hearing in cetaceans, focusing on changes in sound transmission mechanisms. Measurements were made on 60 fossils of whole or partial skulls, isolated tympanics, middle ear ossicles, and mandibles from all six archaeocete families. Fossil data were compared with data on two families of modern mysticete whales and nine families of modern odontocete cetaceans, as well as five families of noncetacean mammals. Results show that the outer ear pinna and external auditory meatus were functionally replaced by the mandible and the mandibular fat pad, which posteriorly contacts the tympanic plate, the lateral wall of the bulla. Changes in the ear include thickening of the tympanic bulla medially, isolation of the tympanoperiotic complex by means of air sinuses, functional replacement of the tympanic membrane by a bony plate, and changes in ossicle shapes and orientation. Pakicetids, the earliest archaeocetes, had a land mammal ear for hearing in air, and used bone conduction underwater, aided by the heavy tympanic bulla. Remingtonocetids and protocetids were the first to display a genuine underwater ear where sound reached the inner ear through the mandibular fat pad, the tympanic plate, and the middle ear ossicles. Basilosaurids and dorudontids showed further aquatic adaptations of the ossicular chain and the acoustic isolation of the ear complex from the skull. The land mammal ear and the generalized modern whale ear are evolutionarily stable configurations, two ends of a process where the cetacean mandible might have been a keystone character. Anat Rec, 290:716–733, 2007.

Cretaceous age for Ir‐rich Deccan intertrappean deposits: palaeontological evidence from Anjar, western India

Micropalaeontological investigations of an iridium‐bearing, lacustrine intertrappean sedimentary sequence at the western margin of the Deccan volcanic province near Anjar, have revealed a profuse occurrence of theropod eggshell fragments (ornithoid type) in beds overlying the iridium‐enriched levels. Associated late Cretaceous ostracods, lack of evidence of reworking, and the absence of any exclusively Palaeocene taxa above the iridium levels, taken together, indicate that the extinction of dinosaurs in the Indian subcontinent occurred after the deposition of Ir layers at Anjar, and that these Ir anomalies may significantly predate the K–T boundary.

Isotopic Approaches to Understanding the Terrestrial-to-Marine Transition of the Earliest Cetaceans

The fossil record is replete with examples of evolutionary transitions between marine and freshwater environments, in both directions. Perhaps the most striking and best documented example of such a transition is the evolution of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) from the extinct group of terrestrial mammals called mesonychians. This transition, first hypothesized by Van Valen (1966), occurred in the temporally and geographically restricted setting of the Paleogene remnant Tethyan epicontinental sea (Gingerich et al., 1983) and adjacent terrestrial ecosystems. These environments lay in the zone of convergence between the Indian Plate and southern Eurasia during the early stages of the continent-continent collision that ultimately produced the Himalayas.