Antes de terem perdido a capacidade de andarem, mas não de fazerem milhares de quilómetros, vogando pelos oceanos.
Antes mesmo, continuavam a engravidar.
E regressavam à telúrica maternidade.
O levanta-te e caminha já não fazia parte dos seus milagres.
Regressavam à terra que haviam deixado.
Para parir.

“Reuters – Fossils from two early whales — a male and a rare pregnant female — shed light on how these ancestors to modern whales made the leap from walking on land to ruling the sea.
The fetal remains, found with the 47.5 million-year-old pregnant female, were positioned head down, suggesting these creatures gave birth on land, while spending much of the rest of their time in the water.
Initially, the tiny fetal teeth stumped University of Michigan paleontologist Philip Gingerich, whose team discovered the fossils in Pakistan in 2000 and 2004.”

Os cálidos ambientes já não faziam parte do seu dia-a-dia.
Tinha mesmo abandonado um qualquer dia-a-dia há 90 milhões de anos.
Acordou pétrea, rodeada de branco gélido.
Fria.
Nunca o tinha sentido.
Estava longe.
Em temperatura, tempo e distância.

“LiveScience.com Sun Feb 1, 1:46 pm ET
The last place scientists expected to find the fossil of a freshwater, tropical turtle was in the Arctic. But they did. The discovery, detailed today in the journal Geology, suggests animals migrated from Asia to North America not around Alaska, as once thought, but directly across a freshwater sea floating atop the warm, salty Arctic Ocean. It also provides additional evidence that a rapid influx of carbon dioxide some 90 million years ago was the likely cause of a super-greenhouse effect that created extraordinary heat in the polar region.”

Podia haver tentado Eva apenas com a lonjura.
Não o fez.
Apenas alongou a sua existência não-viperina.

“The Reptipage – The other major discovery came out today in Nature. Researcher Jason Head, and colleagues have discovered the world’s largest snake. The new snake has been dubbed: Titanoboa cerrejonensis, and it has been estimated to grow to a whopping 13 meters in length (43ft) and could have weighed as much as 1,135kg (2,500lbs). The fact that this immense animal even existed, is amazing enough, but the researchers took their find a little further.”

Referências
1 – Gingerich PD, ul-Haq M, von Koenigswald W, Sanders WJ, Smith BH, et al. 2009 New Protocetid Whale from the Middle Eocene of Pakistan: Birth on Land, Precocial Development, and Sexual Dimorphism. PLoS ONE 4(2): e4366. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004366

2 – Vandermark, D., Tarduno, J.A., Brinkman, D.B., Cottrell, R.D., Mason, S. 2009. New Late Cretaceous Macrobaenid Turtle with Asian affinities from the High Canadian Arctic: Dispersal via Ice-Free Polar Routes.Stephanie Mason. Geology, Vol 37.

3 – Head, J.J.,Bloch, J.I., Hastings, A.K., Bourque, J.R., Cadena, E.A., Herrera, F.A., Polly, D.P., Jaramillo, C.A. 2009. Giant Boid Snake from the Palaeocene Neotropics Reveals Hotter Past Equatorial Temperatures. Nature. Vol 457 :715-717 doi:10.1038/nature07671

Imagens – de 1, de 2 e de Kenneth Krysko/University of Florida/AP Photo.