Whale fossils found ... in the desert!
Whale fossils the size of a school bus have been discovered
recently in a desert in Chile! How did they get there? Scientists are
guessing that the animals originally lived in the Pacific Ocean off of
South America South America, fourth largest continent (1991 est. pop. 299,150,000), c.6,880,000 sq mi (17,819,000 sq km), the southern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. and were beached in Chile. Obviously not able to survive
on land, their skeletons stayed there and are just being discovered now.
Their remains were buried far from the coast however, so scientists are
still wondering how they got so far inland. Some major shifts of the
earth or a landslide landslide, rapid slipping of a mass of earth or rock from a higher elevation to a lower level under the influence of gravity and water lubrication. More specifically, rockslides are the rapid downhill movement of large masses of rock with little or no hydraulic flow, could explain it. Either way, scientists are
excited to find out more. They also found fossils of some extremely rare
species like the aquatic sloth sloth (slōth, slôth), arboreal mammal found in Central and South America distantly related to armadillos and anteaters. Sloths live in tropical forests, where they sleep, eat, and travel through the trees suspended upside down, clinging to and a dolphin that is now extinct. So
cool!
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