Evolution
The black-backed jackal is an exceptionally stable and ancient form of canid, with many fossils dating as far back as the Pleistocene epoch. Fossil jackals discovered in the Transvaal cave are roughly the same size as their descendents, though their nasal bones differ in size. Although numerous fossils dating back to two million years ago have been found in Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa, they are entirely absent in Ethiopia, indicating the species has never expanded past sub-Saharan Africa. Mitochondrial DNA analyses display a large sequence divergence in black-backed jackals from other jackal species, indicating they diverged 2.3–4.5 million years ago.
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Famous quotes containing the word evolution:
“The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Analyze theory-building how we will, we all must start in the middle. Our conceptual firsts are middle-sized, middle-distanced objects, and our introduction to them and to everything comes midway in the cultural evolution of the race.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)