<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/a332ddbc-b09f-4ade-86f5-a74979163887/336AD6D4-F23A-4F4B-861A-FF11CF4D39E1/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/puijila_the_walking_seal_beautiful_transitional_fossil.php" href="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/puijila_the_walking_seal_beautiful_transitional_fossil.php" style="font-size: 11px;">scienceblogs.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/puijila_the_walking_seal_beautiful_transitional_fossil.php"><div align="center"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/scienceblogs.com/img/F3162F0D-F50A-4F82-B7B6-E5B30E6642B1" alt="Puijila_animatic.jpg" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/puijila_the_walking_seal_beautiful_transitional_fossil.php"><P><A href="http://bpr3.org/?p=52"><IMG height="50" width="80" alt="Blogging on Peer-Reviewed Research" src="http://bpr3.org/images/rbicons/ResearchBlogging-Medium-White.png" class="inset" /></A>Seals and sea-lions gracefully careen through today's oceans with the help of legs that have become wide, flat flippers. But it was not always this way. <A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_(musician)">Seals </A>evolved from carnivorous ancestors that walked on land with sturdy legs; only later did these evolve into the flippers that the family is known for. Now, a beautifully new fossil called Puijila illustrates just what such early steps in seal evolution looked like. With four legs and a long tail, it must have resembled a large otter but it was, in fact, a walking seal. </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/puijila_the_walking_seal_beautiful_transitional_fossil.php"><P>Puijila is a massive boon for biologists trying to understand the evolution of <A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinniped">pinnipeds</A>, the group that includes seals, sea lions and walruses. "Puijla is a transitional fossil," Rybczynski explains. "It gives us a glimpse of what the earliest stages of pinniped evolution looked like, before pinnipeds had flippers. And it suggests that in the land-to-sea transition, pinnipeds went through a freshwater phase." </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/puijila_the_walking_seal_beautiful_transitional_fossil.php"><div align="center"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/scienceblogs.com/img/628CE1B8-4A39-4B27-9ED0-0347D9C51F31" alt="Puijila.jpg" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/puijila_the_walking_seal_beautiful_transitional_fossil.php"><div align="center"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/scienceblogs.com/img/3B65A761-C495-42ED-BE8A-EDF3F609E477" alt="Puijila_skeleton.jpg" /></div></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/336AD6D4-F23A-4F4B-861A-FF11CF4D39E1/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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