Another nail in the coffin of that silly belief that I will not mention and give unneccessary notice to:
“I believe the fins may be remains from the time when dolphins’ ancient ancestors lived on land … this is an unprecedented discovery,” Seiji Osumi, an adviser at Tokyo’s Institute of Cetacean Research, said at a news conference televised Sunday.
The second set of fins – much smaller than the dolphin’s front fins – are about the size of human hands and protrude from near the tail on the dolphin’s underside. The dolphin measures 8.92 feet and is about five years old, according to the museum.
Hayashi said he could not tell from watching the dolphin swim in a musuem tank whether it used its back fins to maneuver.
A freak mutation may have caused the ancient trait to reassert itself, Osumi said. The dolphin will be kept at the Taiji museum to undergo X-ray and DNA tests, according to Hayashi.
(via myway news and 7d)
