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[UraMallas]

From that shrew over time something like an ancient hippo evolved, those went fully "back" to the sea by evolving into whales.

edit, well, see above

Well, according to Wikipedia they split from the Echidna some 20 million years ago:

More interesting information here.

The article seems to say otherwise. The platypus is listed specifically in the article as NOT of the branch.

Given some belated stature by an artist’s brush, the animal hardly looks the part of a progenitor of so many mammals (which do not include marsupials, like kangaroos and opossums, or monotremes, egg-laying mammals like the duck-billed platypus).

 

[electroshockwave]

Looks more like an opossum.

Oh my God. Possum GAF.

It all makes sense.

 

[Kinitari]

Yea sure thing science... I believe you. I mean.. Really?

Good for them for getting funded for such creative endeavors.

It will change after few years. Without evidence it is not gonna last.

You guys are cute

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

It will change after few years. Without evidence it is not gonna last.

What about the evidence they just presented?

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

You guys are cute

Haha, seriously did you guys think this common mammal ancestor for thousands of species was going to look ape-like when the ape itself was branch of a relatively more recent mammal evolutionary tree?

 

[scar tissue]

The article seems to say otherwise. The platypus is listed specifically in the article as NOT of the branch.

Er, what?
He said the platypus branched off from the echidna (strictly speaking not true, at least not from the modern echidna). They are both monotremes, and as such, not placental mammals. Nothing in the article says otherwise.

 

[FryHole]

You guys are cute

To be fair, it will most likely change. That whale lineage posted on the first page had been debated for decades and has changed again and again - for example the Mesonychids in that diagram are now considered unlikely to be the ancestral 'whale' after all. This amount of change and debate with a group with an excellent fossil record and lots of molecular studies.

This is the current best result, and no worse for that, but I'd bet new research will replace it, more than once.

 

[Fury Sense]

Does this mean we can get along now or are we still gonna fight?

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

To be fair, it will most likely change. That whale lineage posted on the first page had been debated for decades and has changed again and again - for example the Mesonychids in that diagram are now considered unlikely to be the ancestral 'whale' after all. This amount of change and debate with a group with an excellent fossil record and lots of molecular studies.

This is the current best result, and no worse for that, but I'd bet new research will replace it, more than once.

Fair enough, I thought the earliest common ancestor would look more funky than a standard looking shrew actually before I saw the portrayals, pretty conservative considering the freaky looking animals we got in the age of dinosaurs and afterwards.

 

[NEO0MJ]

http://itsmyocean.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/whales-graph.jpg

That makes sense, I guess.

 

[Dai101]

Pop-pop?

More like Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop .....

 

[Naked Snake]

And if you go as far back as possible, it's some bacteria that formed the baseline on how all life on earth operates. Awesome stuff.

Yeah I was thinking earlier today that every living organism on Earth technically has bacteria DNA in its genome. The structure of your cells originated from a fusion of different bacteria, and it's fascinating that the mitochondria in your cells has separate and distinct DNA (which you only inherent from your mother) and it goes through a sort of micro-evolution in your life time (I'm not expert on this so there might be inaccuracies, it's based on what I remember reading from different sources at different times).

 

[FryHole]

Fair enough, I thought the earliest common ancestor would look more funky than a standard looking shrew actually before I saw the portrayals, pretty conservative considering the freaky looking animals we got in the age of dinosaurs and afterwards.

It's actually what you'd expect, I think - some nondescript jack-of- all-trades mammal. Something adaptable and unfussy, like an ancient rat or pigeon. The specialists and the freaks might struggle during times of change and be difficult for evolution to 'build on' towards the wide variety we see now.

 

[Dead Man]

That's actually a pretty interesting question. How the hell did a freak like that came to be? It's nature's equivalent of Frankenstein's monster.

On topic, I don't get this animal's relation to the whale. While would their ancestors leave the sea and go to land, and then go back to the sea? Sometimes I wish I spent less time on gaf and more time reading on stuff like this.

Predatory aniumals started to catch fish, maybe like Polar bears do seals today. Polar Bears are already quite aquatic. As time goes on the more efficient sea hunters bred and the less efficient ones didin't, so streamlining and swimming ability became important, then millions of years later, whales.

 

[SolidusDave]

The article seems to say otherwise. The platypus is listed specifically in the article as NOT of the branch.

uh, I was only referring to the whale question.

Yeah I was thinking earlier today that every living organism on Earth technically has bacteria DNA in its genome. The structure of your cells originated from a fusion of different bacteria, and it's fascinating that the mitochondria in your cells has separate and distinct DNA (which you only inherent from your mother) and it goes through a sort of micro-evolution in your life time (I'm not expert on this so there might be inaccuracies, it's based on what I remember reading from different sources at different times).

Yeah that's pretty much it.

Also:
Ancestors of plants had a second symbioses event by integrating bacteria capable of photosyntheses (= now chloroplasts within a plant cell, also having their own DNA outside of the actual cellular nucleus).

 

[Naked Snake]

Yeah that's pretty much it.

Also:
Ancestors of plants had a second symbioses event by integrating bacteria capable of photosyntheses (= now chloroplasts within a plant cell, also having their own DNA outside of the actual cellular nucleus).

Yeah did a quick google after my post and was reading about that here.

Archaea are also very interesting when looking into the earliest origins of life, and have quite unique and even weird attributes never seen in bacteria, like this square shaped Haloquadratum:

 

[butzopower]

Does this mean we can get along now or are we still gonna fight?

Fighting is why we evolved.

 

[SolidusDave]

btw, I really like this scheme for the evolution data:


(click for big version)

It makes it more obvious how many entire species branches were lost over time (the lines that end before present time) and that all organism classes are still evolving, including the first ones.

The OP's branching point can also be seen before the 65 million time point.

 

[Fury Sense]

Fighting is why we evolved.

Well we fixed the jew problem, how should we evolve next, butzopower?

 

[McLovin]

why we still got rodents?