In fact we also now know that pakicetids had the double-pulley astragalus regarded as unique to artiodactyls, so now it seems that artiodactyls and cetaceans were closer to one another than cetaceans were to mesonychians. ❋ Darren Naish (2006)
With a number of unique cetacean ear bone characteristics, Pakicetus was interpreted as a probably amphibious predator that was transitional between terrestrial, wolf-like mesonychians, the probable ancestors of whales (or so it was thought at the time), and larger, younger archaeocetes like the basilosaurids. ❋ Darren Naish (2006)
A cherished idea of cetacean affinities – namely, the notion that whales descend from mesonychians – has been usurped by the originally unpopular and crazy notion that whales might be close relatives of hippos. ❋ Darren Naish (2006)
West (1980) also named a Pakistani specimen as a new species of Protocetus - P. attocki (but see below) - and also formalised previous suggestions that two tooth-based Pakistani mammals, Ichthyolestes pinfoldi and Gandakasia potens, were not mesonychians, as they had been originally described, but basal whales. ❋ Darren Naish (2006)
Andrewsarchus as an arctocyonid (like so many Paleogene mammals, arctocyonids are of uncertain affinities - they've traditionally been regarded as condylarths [see previous article] - but they don't seem closely related to mesonychians), and Gingerich (1998) implied that this is at least plausible. ❋ Unknown (2009)
Because Andrewsarchus is not the world's only mesonychian (mesonychians part I) ❋ Unknown (2009)
Thanks to their hoofed phalanges and to the general idea that these animals were somehow part of the 'ancestral stock' for artiodactyls, perissodactyls and other living hoofed mammals, mesonychians have traditionally been regarded as 'stem-ungulates' or, more formally, as members of Condylarthra. ❋ Unknown (2009)
Extant mammals that exhibit substantial dimorphism in canine size often exhibit a polygynous social system, so it's likely that this was true of some mesonychians. ❋ Unknown (2009)
: On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess Because Andrewsarchus is not the world's only mesonychian (mesonychians part I): Tetrapod Zoology Confirming Aesop - rooks use stones to raise the level of water in a pitcher: Not Exactly Rocket Science ❋ Unknown (2009)
Mesonychians part II: Andrewsarchus was a hell of a lot weirder than all the books say previous article was a brief, cursory introduction to the mesonychians ❋ Unknown (2009)
The glenoid fossa is flattened compared to that of 'proper' mesonychians, and the associated pre - and post-glenoid structures on the zygomatic arch are small. ❋ Unknown (2009)
More mesonychians next: Andrewsarchus and the triisodontines. ❋ Unknown (2009)
Ankalagon (Mammalia, Mesonychia) and evidence of sexual dimorphism in mesonychians. ❋ Unknown (2009)
