What is the closest land dwelling relative to whales?

PichuPikachu

It might be Indohyus http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317527,00.html Nov 29 10, 8:28 PM

Zbeckabee

A Distant Cousin: The hippopotamus is the whale's closest living land-dwelling relative. http://animal.discovery.com/tv/whale-wars/whaling/ Thewissen said there are problems with not enough well preserved fossils, but he said what's left makes a strong case for Indohyus as the closest land ancestor — with hippos as the closest living land relative. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22328877/ Nov 29 10, 8:56 PM

author

Until 1909, naturalists grouped hippos with pigs, based on molar patterns. Several lines of evidence, first from blood proteins, then from molecular systematics and DNA and the fossil record, show that their closest living relatives are cetaceans—whales, dolphins and porpoises. The common ancestor of hippos and whales branched off from Ruminantia and the rest of the even-toed ungulates; the cetacean and hippo lineages split soon afterwards. The most recent theory of the origins of Hippopotamidae suggests that hippos and whales shared a common semi-aquatic ancestor that branched off from other artiodactyls around 60 million years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippopotamus Dec 01 10, 9:21 PM