The whale with hooves and a tail

A BIZARRE proto-whale with tiny hooves is raising questions about how whales evolved from land-based animals into creatures that colonised the world’s oceans. The 42.6m-year-old fossilised remains of Peregocetus pacificus have been discovered in Peru—halfway around the world from where these giants are first thought to have appeared, in Asia, some 10m years earlier.

There were only two paths that P. pacificus or its ancestors could have taken to migrate from Asia to South America. It either swam across the Pacific or walked across Africa before swimming across the Atlantic. Both options would have been possible if P. pacificus had been fully adapted to an entirely marine life but this was not the case. The giant had four fully functioning hind limbs, robust enough to carry its weight; each digit was capped with a small hoof.