Charles Darwin’s birthday is on Tuesday. (He was born in 1809.) In his honor I am reporting that we--the 5,400 or so living mammal species--are not all descended from monkeys, but rather from a rather weasel-like looking animal that survived the global extinction that killed off the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago. This is the finding of a rather extensive study by a large number of palentologists. The data is publicly accessible, and if you are really interested, google “MorphoBank.”
If you would like to see a picture of our ancestor, google “Protungulatum donnae,” which is the scientific name our progenitor. In the artist’s rendering, it has a long tail and sharp teeth. You can also google “Adam and Eve” for the fairy tale version, but I prefer the weasel ancestor.
That’s my good news for this Sunday night. Happy birthday Charles Darwin.
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