greel Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Saw part of this video on the National Geographic channel Thursday night. Very good stuff with Dr. Gingerich following the beginnings of whale evolution from Pakistan to Egypt. Unfortunately, this is when I fell asleep after a full night of work. It repeats at 2 pm (EST) this Sunday for any interested. I'm glad I get another shot at it. I'll definately have this on DVD when it becomes available. -greel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Nicholas Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 The Whale leg concept has alluded me for many years, my grandfather used to try to teach me but I was at an age where the concept blew my mind. I'm glad now to be a hobbyist and an aspiring amateur in this field, it has answered many of my childhood questions and has broadened my mind... The only problem now is... I don't know enough! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emmytee Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 i am soo watching this i can't wait! i've always briefly heard of the evolution of whales but never seen a documentary! I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. ~ E. B. White Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boesse Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 As a whale paleontologist... I was a bit disappointed by the documentary. It was far better than the episodes about bear evolution and bird evolution, but it only featured a few whales, and didn't expand at all on the dozens and dozens of archaeocete whale genera/species now known to science. Also, the animations of the skeletons of Pakicetus morphing into that of Ambulocetus indirectly implied that this happened, when the real case is that they are separated by several million years, and that transition from one species to another in the whale fossil record is gradual, one small change at a time (so now that the record is so good, when new whales are found in between the 1-4 million year spaces between previously known species, the differences are minute). Bobby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greel Posted February 15, 2009 Author Share Posted February 15, 2009 As a whale paleontologist... I was a bit disappointed by the documentary. It was far better than the episodes about bear evolution and bird evolution, but it only featured a few whales, and didn't expand at all on the dozens and dozens of archaeocete whale genera/species now known to science. Also, the animations of the skeletons of Pakicetus morphing into that of Ambulocetus indirectly implied that this happened, when the real case is that they are separated by several million years, and that transition from one species to another in the whale fossil record is gradual, one small change at a time (so now that the record is so good, when new whales are found in between the 1-4 million year spaces between previously known species, the differences are minute).Bobby After viewing the whole program, I was also disappointed. I enjoyed it through the begginning into the discussions of basilosaurus found in Egypt, but it finished very weakly glossing over the last 30 million years. Megalodon was given the appearance of having been around for only a short time, too. Not the ruler of the seas until just a couple million years ago. It tried to cover too much material in one hour. It would have been more satisfying to have just tackled the most primitave of whales. -greel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emmytee Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 i, too, was a bit disappointed. sure i know more than i did before watching it, but i noticed that the show was cheaply made. i watched the documentary before Morphed: From dinosaur to turkey and the next show borrowed many scenes from that. from dinosaurs to turkeys actually used the crocodile scene found in the whale show, and alot of the same scenery where the animators would place the dinosaur/ terrestrial whale ancestor. i was thinking that the graphic artists were lazy when they shot the scene with the crocodile and not only used footage of a present-day croc, but they used a clip of it attacking a gazelle. the show itself was really repetitive, saying things many times, but that's a tv show for you. both shows tried to build up suspense for the next ancestor or another important species, but its was sometimes so obvious for both and they wouldn't reveal it for like 20 minutes and of course my guess was right and i kind of wished it was wrong-archeopteryx for the birds and the megalodon as a predator.seemed like a great show for people who dont know anything about prehistory who will be convinced that turkeys are velociraptors just waiting to attack. well borrowing scenery wasnt that bad, but i thought the crocodile thing was hilarious especially because they did it two shows in a row! sorry im ranting alot, im still asleep. I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. ~ E. B. White Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boesse Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 Haha, Emmytee, you're right - my friends and I noticed that the habitat where the "raptors" were hanging out was actually footage of Wadi-al-Hitan, the valley of the whales. And we also noticed the same scene of the crocodile trying to eat the dinosaur and Pakicetus, and they just changed the prey item. Just wait 'til you see the bear one - the animation is soooo bad. It looks like they used a gorilla as the model for movement, and just added the animation of the bear over it, so its arms move like a gorilla's do, and the bear's hind limbs don't swing out laterally - for christsakes, they could have watched footage of actual bears, you know, walking. What's worse is that they had clips of real bears walking/running interspersed with the really bad animation, so you were able to quickly figure out what the heck looked so wrong. Bobby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emmytee Posted February 21, 2009 Share Posted February 21, 2009 Haha, Emmytee, you're right - my friends and I noticed that the habitat where the "raptors" were hanging out was actually footage of Wadi-al-Hitan, the valley of the whales.And we also noticed the same scene of the crocodile trying to eat the dinosaur and Pakicetus, and they just changed the prey item. Just wait 'til you see the bear one - the animation is soooo bad. It looks like they used a gorilla as the model for movement, and just added the animation of the bear over it, so its arms move like a gorilla's do, and the bear's hind limbs don't swing out laterally - for christsakes, they could have watched footage of actual bears, you know, walking. What's worse is that they had clips of real bears walking/running interspersed with the really bad animation, so you were able to quickly figure out what the heck looked so wrong. Bobby haha yeah i saw like the first two minutes of the bear one and im like, "alright i cant take it anymore" the bear was sooo bad its fur was not real fur, it looked like a plastic toy I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. ~ E. B. White Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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