Geographical Limitations of Species

      Throughout the millions of years complex life has been on this planet, species have usually been geographically limited by the oceans.  For example, if a certain creature lives in Europe, it will not be able to cross the Atlantic and go to the Americas, nor will it be found in Australia, but it might cross Arabia into Africa, or Russia into Asia.  Consequently, we might find related species in Europe and Africa and Asia; however, we should not expect to see related species in both Europe and America, or Europe and Australia, unless introduced by humans.

      Indeed, this rule holds true in most cases, as the fossil record attests.  Isolated landmasses like Australia and Madagascar sport unique animals like kangaroos and mongooses, because they have been evolutionarily isolated for a long time.  Madagascar lost contact with Africa around 130 million years ago.  Australia's most recent connections have been with Antarctica, a continent rather devoid of life anyway.  South America also used to be home to many unique animals, before the isthmus of Panama came into existence about 4 million years ago.  South American fossils from before 4 million years ago typically represent evolutionary lineages that are unknown to the rest of the world. 

      This phenomenon is to be expected under normal evolutionary conditions.  Natural selection will yield different results on different continents.  The terrestrial life forms that evolve on unconnected continents will remain different from each other, as long as vast oceans restrict them from invading each other's geographic range.  For the most part, the fossil record establishes that this is indeed the case.

      However, exceptions do exist.  The geographic restriction of terrestrial life forms is occasionally violated by anomalies in the fossil record.  Certain families and genera show up in parts of the world where they should not be.  They appear on two or more continents that were separated by broad oceans, often with no likely explanation for how they got there.  Examining these anomalies is the subject of this chapter.

 

Noah's Ark of Marsupials

      Toward the end of the dinosaurs' long reign, there lived a marsupial whose name was Glasbius.  20 specimens have been found among the Lancian rocks of North America,[1] dating to the range of 67-65 million years ago.  Glasbius disappeared from North America 65 million years ago, along with the dinosaurs. 

      However, immediately after the extinction, some close relatives of Glasbius appeared in South America.  These relatives were so similar to Glasbius that they are classified together in the same family – that is Caroloameghiniidae, or super-family Caroloameghinioidea.[2] [3] [4]   Glasbius may be a close cousin of its South American relatives.[5]  Glasbius and the South American Carolameghiniidae are similar enough that an evolutionary relationship would normally be presumed.

      Yet nothing like Glasbius or the Caroloameghiniidae existed in South America before the dinosaurs went extinct.  Their debut in South America occurs in the Tiupampa fossil beds of Bolivia.[6]   The Tiupampa is the early Paleocene, immediately after the dinosaurs, and immediately after Glasbius went extinct from North America.  A couple of other close kin of Glasbius are also known from the Paleocene of South America.[7]  Hence, before the dinosaurs went extinct, the Caroloameghiniidae are known only from North America; yet after the dinosaurs went extinct, they are known only from South America.

      It's as if the whole lineage migrated from North America to South America.  The problem is, Central America had not yet formed at that time.  A wide ocean separated North America from South America.  There was no Panama land bridge between the two as there is today.  Thus, it is difficult to explain why or how these animals relocated from North America to South America.  Particularly, why would such a relocation just happen to coincide with the extinction of the dinosaurs? 

      One explanation could be that extraterrestrial and/or supernatural intervention saved the Caroloameghiniidae.  Perhaps the gods saw fit to save this creature from the cataclysm that killed the dinosaurs, and so they protected a few of them and transplanted them to South America.  Much like Noah saving a few animals before the Flood, it appears that some benevolent god loaded these creatures onto some kind of boat or craft and saved them from destruction.

      But why would the gods rescue the Caroloameghiniidae and not rescue other species?  One plausible answer might be that the gods saw evolutionary potential in the Caroloameghiniidae, because they were somewhat like primates.[8]  As such, they had the potential to evolve along the same lines as apes and eventually humans.  As it turned out, the true primates beat them to the punch, and so the rescue mission was an exercise in futility.  None the less, it was a reasonable gamble for the gods to take given the evolutionary odds of developing an intelligent creature. 

      Another genus within the family is Chulpasia, which is similar to Thylacotinga from Australia.[9]  If all these belong to the same lineage, as their similarity suggests, it would mean, perhaps, that the Caroloameghiniidae were also airlifted to the distant continent of Australia; however, it is currently believed that such migrations to Australia occurred over a land bridge via Antarctica, as Antarctica was warmer then.

      The Pediomyidae were another family of marsupial mammals, which seem to have disappeared from North America along with the dinosaurs, but then inexplicably reappeared in South America immediately after the dinosaurs became extinct.   The Pediomyidae were found in South America in the Laguna Umayo Formation,[10] which was at first thought to be Cretaceous in age, but was later demonstrated to be early Paleocene.[11]  One can clearly see that the Pediomyidae suffered complete extinction from North America at the same time the dinosaurs suffered extinction, for nearly 100 fossilized specimens have been found in North America from the time immediately before the end of the dinosaurs, but none have been found after the end of the dinosaurs.[12]  Only in South America did they reappear.  Nor is this because more advanced animals replaced these marsupials, for the early Paleocene fauna of North America consists largely of primitive marsupials and multituberculates, which were common on both sides of the extinction event – not being replaced by advanced mammals until the Eocene.

      The mainstream explanation is as follows:  These marsupials evolved first on North America, then migrated to South America over an elusive land bridge,[13] which allegedly rose and fell multiple times.[14]  Then, some of them moved from South America to Antarctica over another elusive land bridge, where they thrived because the earth was warmer back then.  Finally, they arrived in Australia, because Australia at that time was still connected to Antarctica.  That's the naturalistic explanation for how marsupials got to South America and Australia.  But why did these migrations just happen to coincide with the extinctions of the same lineages from North America?  Moreover, if there was a landbridge, then why didn't more species cross it?  For the most part, North American and South American fauna were different – Caroloameghiniidae and Pediomyidae are the exception, not the rule.

 

 

Monkeys

      Ever since monkeys first emerged in the Oligocene, they appear to have lived on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.  The Atlantic Ocean is nearly 1,800 miles from the western-most coasts of Africa to the eastern-most coasts of South America.  In the early Oligocene, the distance was perhaps 1,000 miles – still a formidable obstacle for any land animal to cross.  Moreover, the impossibility of a land bridge or series of islands that could facilitate migrations is confirmed by the fact that this region of the South Atlantic is consistently deep and devoid of underwater mountain building.  No Bering Strait here.

      The Old World monkeys and the New World monkeys are so similar that convergent evolution may be ruled out.  Science believes that the monkeys migrated from Africa to South America about 37 million years ago.  Furthermore, this remarkable journey across the Atlantic only happened once.  According to Wicander and Monroe,

 

No evidence exists of any prosimian or other primitive primates in Central or South America nor of any contact with Old World monkeys after the initial immigration from Africa.[15] 

 

That a migration happened might be remotely plausible, given the possibility that the monkeys rafted across the Atlantic on dead trees; but if it happened once, we should expect it to happen again and again.  Yet such is not the case.  There is but one single lineage of New World monkeys, which demands that there was at most just one single migration event.  Moreover, this migration event just happened to occur at the very same time the monkeys first evolved.  Is this coincidence or something more?

      Perhaps the gods were having more than a barrel of fun with the monkeys, so they transported some monkeys to South America to enlarge their habitat and population.  Or, perhaps they considered it advantageous to have the ancestors of potentially intelligent life forms evolving on two different continents, to enhance the potential of positive evolutionary advancements within the primate group.

      A similar situation exists with the carnivores of Madagascar, for molecular DNA evidence demonstrates that they are all one single lineage.  This fact indicates that there was one and only one migration of carnivores from Africa to Madagascar.[16]  Again, the same question should be asked – if animals can cross the ocean once, why didn't they do so again and again?  Why was there only one migrational event of carnivores across the ocean from Africa to Madagascar?

 

Large Animals Crossing the Ocean

      It would be quite amazing to see a marsupial or a monkey gripping a log and crossing the ocean on it, but it would be utterly unthinkable to see an elephant or a giant ground sloth doing the same thing. 

      In the mid-Cenozoic, Africa and Arabia were moving north together, slowly closing the ancient Tethys Sea.  Eventually, this northward drift caused Africa and Arabia to join with Asia.  The fusion of these continents split the Tethys Sea into the current day Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf.  The time of this event was at first thought to have been 17.5 million years ago.  Before then, Africa and Arabia were supposedly isolated from Eurasia.  However, this has subsequently been called into question on account of African elephants appearing in Asia during the late Oligocene, which is at least 7 million years beforehand.  This leaves open the question of how the elephants got across the Tethys Sea, and has spawned a theory that temporary land bridges emerged before the collision.[17]  Alternatively, it could mean the elephants were transported. 

      Concerning the large-bodied terrestrial South American mammals known as xenarthtra, which includes anteaters, armadillos, and giant ground sloths, Pujos et al reported:

 

The presence of xenarthra in other continents remains ambiguous.  Purported xenarthrans have been reported from the Eocene of Europe (the "anteateroid" Eurotamandua from Messel, Germany; Storch, 1981) and Asia (the "pseudo-xenarthrans," Ernanodon and Asiabradypus from the late Paleocene of China; Ding, 1979; Radinsky and Ding, 1984; Nessov, 1987 and Chungchienia from the Middle Eocene of China; Chow, 1963; Chow et al., 1996; Rose  et al., 2005).[18] 

 

Hunter and Janis also noted the anomalous presence of xenarthrans in Europe and Asia, such as Palaeanodonta, Ernandon, and Eurotamandua.[19]  Given that xenarthra originated in South America and are common only to that continent, and given that South America was isolated from the rest of the world during the entire time of xenarthran existence, up to 4 million years ago when Panama rose from the sea; it is strange to find xenarthrans on other continents prior to 4 million years ago.  Could it be that something, or someone, transported them there?

 

George Gaylord Simpson's Sweepstakes

      George Gaylord Simpson, one of the most widely respected paleontologists of all time, mentioned a few bio-geographical oddities himself.  Among them was the horse Anchitherium, which existed in both Spain and North America, and the elephantine Mastodon, which originated in Africa but somehow got to North America.  Simpson proposed that such distributions of animals across continents was best attributed to plate tectonics – that is, continents moving around and crashing into one another, thus allowing animals to migrate from one continent to another across dry land.[20]  Today, plate tectonics are relatively well understood, and we can date the approximate times that certain continents were connected by land bridges, and when they were not.  The ability to date the locations of the continents imposes some limitations to Simpson's theory, because not all strange distributions of animals across continents can be explained when certain constraints in deep time place vast oceans in the way of immigrations that we know must have happened.  But Simpson also had a second theory on migration which addresses this problem. 

      Simpson proposed that some animals get "sweepstakes tickets" across large bodies of water.  According to the theory, a pregnant animal hops on a log or sturdy mat of vegetation that floats out to sea, and somehow the animal stays afloat and hydrated until it reaches a foreign continent.  The new continent is then populated by means of incest among the children of the immigrant.  However unlikely such a journey may be, it stands to reason, so they say, that it happens once every billionth blue moon.  In such a fashion, it is believed, monkeys and marsupials crossed over to South America, and a multitude of other lucky land mammals traversed the waters between Eurasia and the islands of proto-Spain and proto-India, and others from Asia to the East Indies. 

 

Rodents – A Challenge to Simpson's Sweepstakes

      A problem with the theory concerns the lack of rodents who made these alleged epic journeys on the high seas.  If monkeys and marsupials can hop on logs and cross an ocean, then certainly squirrels and rats should be capable of doing so also.  There are several factors which make rodents prime characters for testing the sweepstakes theory.  First, rodents are small enough to float on a log without weighing it down.  Second, they have claws which can cling to a log tossed about by waves.  Third, rodents have an excellent fossil record.  Their fossils can be found in abundant numbers, much more so than the majority of other terrestrial vertebrates.  If they made it to a certain continent, we should expect to find fossil evidence for their arrival. 

      However, such is not the case.  Of the 151 genera of mice and rats listed in McKenna and Bell, not a single genus appears indigenously on both sides of a large ocean when there is no plausible terrestrial connection – not a single one.  Granted, they got to Australia, but this only happened at a very late date, and only because of the low sea levels caused by the ice ages.  For the vast majority of the time mice and rats have been on this planet, the bulk of which was before the ice ages, they were absent from Australia.  Mice and rats never did make it to the Americas – not by natural means.[21]  It took Christopher Columbus to bring them to the New World.  If there were ever an animal that was small enough, agile enough, with claws clingy enough, and with enough of a limit to its fresh water requirements due to its small size, to climb aboard a tree branch and float across the turbulent high seas, shouldn't we expect a mouse to do it?

      Concerning the broader category of rodents as a whole, of the 246 families, subfamilies, tribes, and subtribes listed in McKenna and Bell, three clear examples exist where the same group appears on both sides of a wide ocean without a plausible landbridge.[22] 

      Porcupines are the biggest of the three mysteries.  Of all the rodents that might grip a log and hold on for a thousand miles of mighty waves, porcupines are one of the least likely candidates.  They are large and unstable compared to squirrels, mice, and a host of other rodents, both extant and extinct.  Porcupines first appear in the Oligocene of South America.  Rodents as a whole had originated in Asia – the farthest place on Earth from South America.  So how did porcupine ancestors get from Asia to South America?  One thing is certain:  they could not have come via North America.  Although Beringia (Alaska-Siberia) was functioning as a landbridge for much of the Cenozoic, the Panamanian landbridge did not exist until just 4 million years ago.  Moreover, there are no fossil porcupine species in North America until after the Panamanian landbridge was established – meaning that North American porcupines came from South America, not vice-versa.  Could they have come from Africa?  The problem here is also two-fold; first, because Africa was already separated from South America long before rodents even existed, and second, because porcupine relatives in Africa do not appear until the Miocene, which is after they first appeared in South America.  It is possible that porcupines were in Europe during the Oligocene,[23] in which case we are left with the unlikely proposition that the porcupines pulled a Christopher Columbus across the widest part of the Atlantic. 

      The other two inexplicable rodent distributions are the case of the African rodent family Zegdoumyidae, and the genus Protophiomys.[24]  These appear in the African Eocene long before Africa was attached to Asia via the Suez.  The Afro-Arabian continental plate separated from Eurasia while the age of the dinosaurs was still young, and it did not rejoin Eurasia until the time of human-like apes.  The Eocene is after the former but before the latter.  Thus, Africa was an island continent when these lineages of rodents somehow immigrated to it.

      The history of rodents is well known from the fossil record.  They originated in Asia during the Paleocene, from whence they quickly migrated to Europe and onward to North America across the Greenland-Norway landbridge.  After Greenland and Norway were permanently separated by ocean about 40 million years ago, Beringia still provided for North America and Eurasia to continue sharing their mutual rodent infestations.  In the Miocene, temporal landbridges or closely spaced islands allowed rodents to cross into Africa in large numbers.  But from Africa, they could not cross over to Madagascar until the ice ages lowered the sea level.  Therefore, Madagascar was free of rodents even while Africa swarmed with rodents for over 10 million years!  The same is true for New Guinea and Australia, which were entirely free of rodents until the ice ages lowered sea levels, thus creating opportunities for the rodents of Asia to island hop their way to the land down under.[25] 

      Hence, there is considerable evidence that rodents are in fact constrained by large oceans, and do not cross them much easier than any other type of terrestrial animal.  If they cannot cross oceans, even with their small and agile frame, and clinging claws, then how is it that larger animals crossed the oceans? 

      For these reasons, it is at least plausible to suppose that paranormal or extraterrestrial entities have transported creatures across continents.  Indeed, it may be the only likely explanation.

 

Alien Abduction

      What happened in Enoch’s time, when angels came down from heaven and began to procreate with animals and humans, is also happening today, only today it is no longer attributed to angels, but is recognized as alien abduction.  Alien abduction of both animals and humans is a longstanding phenomenon known to those who study UFOs.  Sometimes, when the aliens are finished probing, terrifying, defiling, and otherwise abusing their abductees, they unceremoniously dump them in whatever random location is convenient.  In this manner, we might explain the occasional fossil which shows up on a continent it does not belong.

      The agenda of the extraterrestrials is to use human sexual mechanisms to create one or more new species.  At the moment, they don't want to conquer us as Hollywood pictures in the movies, nor do they want to help us as the New Agers hope.  Instead, UFO researchers report a scenario much more akin to the situation in Enoch’s time – that is, heavenly entities secretly coexist with us for the purpose of genetic engineering.

      One of the most widely respected UFO researchers is Dr. David Jacobs, who has effectively reduced UFO abduction research into a science that can be studied using large sets of quantifiable data.  According to Jacobs,

 

The evidence suggests that all the alien procedures serve a reproductive agenda.  And at the heart of the reproductive agenda is the Breeding Program, in which the aliens collect human sperm and eggs, incubate fetuses in human hosts, to produce alien-human hybrids, and cause humans to mentally and physically interact with these hybrids for the purposes of their development…[26]  The production of a hybrid species appears to be the means to the aliens’ goal.  So far, researchers have been unable to uncover any other purpose for the UFO and abduction phenomena, and the Breeding Program.[27]

 

Leading UFO researcher Budd Hopkins adds confirmation.  About his first alien abduction case in 1983 he writes that it was,

 

The first of hundreds of similar cases I subsequently investigated in which women reported being abducted and apparently artificially inseminated, after which they found themselves pregnant.  Then equally mysteriously, about the end of the first trimester, but often weeks or months later, the pregnancies disappeared, with no trace of fetal tissue.[28]

 

Jacobs adds,

 

On many occasions, abductees have reported scheduling an abortion only to find an empty uterus during the actual procedure.[29]

 

For the skeptics, Jacobs lays down several reasons for why alien abductions are real: 

 

Abductees are physically missing during the event.  The abductee is not where he is supposed to be; people who search for him cannot find him.  The abductee is usually aware that there is a gap of two or three hours that neither he nor anyone else can account for… Approximately 20 percent of abductions include two or more people who see each other during the abduction event.[30] 

 

These factors make it improbable, even impossible, that the abduction phenomena are only psychological delusions. 

      Hopkins and Jacobs claim that female abductees typically develop health problems associated with their reproductive organs, even to the point where hysterectomies are common.  During hysterectomy operations, doctors sometimes notice scar tissue has developed on the ovaries or the fallopian tubes, indicating that something or someone penetrated the abductees’ stomachs to retrieve or impregnate eggs.[31] [32]

      This aspect of the alien abduction phenomena is consistent with the fact that female abductees typically report the aliens inserting a long needle into their stomach.  This procedure is a constant component of the abduction experience, going back to the very first time a woman was allegedly abducted by aliens.  In 1961, Barney and Betty Hill made history by becoming the first victims of alien abduction to have their experience widely published.  The couple reported that the aliens ran a long needle into Betty’s stomach, telling her it was a pregnancy test.  Such a procedure was entirely unknown in 1961, but is commonly done today for the purpose of removing eggs for in-vitro fertilization.  After the abduction experience, Barney contracted genital warts, possibly from the aliens.[33]  Jacobs attests that of 700 abduction cases he has studied, almost 150 of them contain abductee testimony that eggs were taken during the abduction.[34] 

      Another very early UFO abduction incident, which allegedly took place in 1957, concerned a Brazilian farmer named Villas Boas who was ostensibly forced to engage in sexual intercourse with a naked female human-like alien.  After the sexual encounter, the alien pointed to her stomach and then pointed upward to the sky, suggesting that she would become pregnant with his child, and that it would be born in the sky with her.  The pattern of alien-human sexual activity for the purposes of reproducing a hybrid species has been a consistent component of the alien abduction phenomena ever since it began in the 1950's, and ever since it first began in the time of Enoch.

      Concerning bestiality, cattle mutilations also play a likely role in the reproductive goals of the aliens.  In typical cattle mutilations, animals such as cows, sheep, goats, or horses are slaughtered, but without any trace of blood.  Internal organs are removed, and UFO sightings often accompany the event.  UFO writer and Ugaritic scholar Heiser notes that a bovine uterus is very similar to a human uterus.  The aliens are apparently killing cows to take their uteruses.  Then they incubate hybrid human-alien fetuses inside of the bovine uteruses.[35]  This explains why the cattle mutilations are occurring. 

 

A Condylarth Who Crossed Two Oceans

      The condylarths were an ancient group of mammals that lived soon after the dinosaurs became extinct.  From 65 to 40 million years ago, they roamed across the northern supercontinent of Eurasia-North America, which was at first connected via Greenland and later by Beringia.  The earth was much warmer then, and the continents farther south, so many species easily traversed Greenland and Alaska. 

      There were also condylarths in Africa and in South America.  However, the species on those two southern continents were different from those in the north.  While the ancestors of deer, horses, and pigs roamed the northern continents, a weird camel-like creature called litopterna roamed South America, and the hyracoids roamed Africa.  This was because the condylarths were separated by vast oceans, which kept them from intermingling.  Africa was separated from Europe by the Tethys Sea – a large and turbulent ocean that had existed deep into the age of the dinosaurs.  Spain was far distant, and a good deal of the Middle East had not even risen from the ocean yet.  Africa was an island continent.  So too was South America.

      Yet despite this, a certain lineage of condylarths was able to cross the ocean – not just once, but twice.  This was a rare feat seeing that few other condylarths accomplished even one oceanic crossing.  This lineage, variously called the Mioclaenidae or the Kollpaniinae, was previously known from North America, South America, and Europe.[36]  Recently, it was discovered in Africa also.  Although the African condylarth Abdounodus displays a fair degree of difference from its cousins on other continents, it is referred to the same family Mioclaenidae.  Gheerbrant et al mention the possibility of convergent evolution, yet prefer to view the African specimen as a descendent of condylarths from the northern continents, and suggest the condylarths found a way across the Tethys Sea.[37] 

      The possibility of a viable land bridge or series of closely spaced islands connecting Europe with Africa is a convenient assumption, but rests on shaky evidence.  If such a land bridge truly existed, then we should see a mass migration of many species between Africa and Europe.  In other landbridge events, the fossil record clearly proves that there was a massive exchange of species between North and South America when the isthmus of Panama arose 4 million years ago, and also proves a massive exchange occurred between Siberia and Alaska when Beringia was dry-shod.  Yet the supposed trans-Tethyan link, if it existed, certainly did not allow large numbers of European species to migrate into Africa, nor vice-versa.  Hence, the existence of such a land bridge is not well supported.  If one species can cross a landbridge, others can too.  But in this case, only the condylarth crossed.

      Hence, if the supposed land bridges never existed, then this would mean that the Mioclaenidae crossed two oceans.  They crossed the ocean dividing South America from North America, and they also crossed the Tethys Sea which divided Africa from Europe.  If they crossed by swimming, then this was quite an accomplishment for a condylarth, since condylarths possess long narrow limbs made for running, not swimming.  Likewise, it is hard to see how they rafted on driftwood, since their lanky legs are ill-suited for gripping driftwood, and because ocean currents would have been mainly contrary to the directions they traveled.  Thus, the possibility of supernatural or extraterrestrial transport provides a plausible solution for an otherwise inexplicable problem.

 

India and the Rest of Gondwana

      In the Jurassic, the Indian subcontinent was part of a large supercontinent called Gondwana, comprised of Africa, Antarctica, South America, Madagascar, Australia, and India.  India broke away from this massive continent early in the Cretaceous about 140 or 130 million years ago.  It began a long voyage northward, through the Indian Ocean, finally colliding with Asia in the late Paleocene and/or early Eocene.  The collision probably began about 55 million years ago and culminated just under 50 million years ago.[38]  Hence, India was an island continent for the great majority of the Cretaceous period and on into the Paleocene.

      However, a variety of mammals from the Cretaceous have been found on India which should not be there if India were isolated by ocean.  During the Cretaceous, there was a definite distinction between the typical mammals of the southern continents of Gondwana on one hand, and the mammals of the northern continents on the other hand.  Since India was part of Gondwana, we should generally not expect to find northern-type mammals on it before its collision with Asia 55 million years ago.  Nevertheless, several fossils of northern-type Cretaceous mammals on southern continents have been found, despite a lack of geological evidence for terrestrial connections between the continents.  Wilson et al called such north-south migrations "infrequent dispersal events," and posed the question, "What biogeographic filters allowed their dispersal but prevented the dispersal of other taxa?[39]  

      The implication is that something other than a land bridge was responsible for the transportation of northern animals to southern continents, for when a landbridge is crossable, a large and diverse assemblage of species migrates across it, yet in the Cretaceous of Gondwana, such a large scale interchange is not readily apparent.  Even though terrestrial connections with other continents have not been ruled out,[40] terrestrial connections themselves cannot account for the migrations, because if they did, then there should have been a wholesale interchange of species across continents.  As it was, only a few species crossed over to other continents.

 

Arctostylopids

      In 1915, a certain group of North American mammals called arctostylopids were identified as relatives of the notoungulates.[41]  The problem is, the notoungulates are only found on South America.  Years later, when this was realized, the similarities between the arctostylopids and the notoungulates were deemed due to convergent evolution, and the arctostylopids were reassigned to their own order.[42] [43]  This is only one example of how cladists tend to raise new taxa when geographical considerations prohibit identification with existing taxa.  This tendency is rooted in the assumption that the dispersal of animals is limited by geography – an assumption which, although it is well substantiated in the fossil record most of the time, does not always hold true, as we have seen.  This tendency to raise new taxa in light of biogeographical considerations results in the danger that extraterrestrial transportation events may fail to be recognized as such, and thus evidence for divine and/or alien involvement in earth history may be inadvertently masked by the biogeographical assumptions of cladistics.

 

 

The Case of the Kidnapped Opossum

      A genus of possum-like creatures called Peradectes lived in North America in the Paleocene and Eocene periods, after the dinosaurs went extinct.[44]  Some apparently migrated to Europe over the Greenland-Norway land bridge about 50 million years ago, for they are found in the Messel Pits of Germany.  At that time, the expanding Atlantic Ocean had not yet completely separated Greenland from Europe. 

      What is more difficult to explain is how this ancient possum got to South America.  It is known that at least one of these possums existed in South America about 63-65 million years ago, for a specimen was found in the Tiupampan strata of Peru.[45]  But there was no land bridge to South America at that time, so there was really no way this possum could have migrated to South America via dry land.  Lofgren et al suggested that the fossil record indicates two migrations from North America to South America during the Paleocene, the first one in the late Puercan or early Torrejonian (63 million years ago), and another in the late Tiffanian (57 million years ago).[46] 

      It cannot be explained by convergent evolution on both continents, as the mammals of South America immediately preceding them in the late Cretaceous were of an entirely different structure.[47]  As in Europe, the mammals of South America suffered mass annihilation in the dinosaur extinction – to a greater degree than did the mammals of North America and Asia.  After the extinction, new mammal populations were imported into Europe and South America from North America, and to a lesser extent from Asia.[48]  There is really no chance this same type of possum could have evolved by coincidence in two separate places.  This is because duplicate evolutionary events generally do not happen in the fossil record at the level of genus and family.

      There is some question whether the Peruvian specimen should be assigned to the genus Alphadon, which is a close relative of Peradectes.  Alphadon existed in North America during the Campanian and Maastrichtian times of the late Cretaceous, over the period of 84-65 million years ago.  Not that it matters, since there was no more a land bridge to South America for Alphadon than there was for Peradectes. 

 

Puzzling Snake Distributions

      In another example, snake fossils recovered from the Cerro Azul Formation of Argentina confirm that viperid snakes were present in South America from the late Miocene forward.  The timing of the viperids' first appearance in South America occurs after they first emerged on other continents during the early Miocene.  Hence, it is agreed that the viperid snakes must have migrated to South America from another continent.  The problem is, how did they get there?   There is no proof for the existence of a terrestrial connection between North and South America during the Miocene,[49] and Africa had separated from South America long before the Miocene.

      Could snakes have found a way across the ocean?  One may note that snakes inhabit Australia.  However, many islands such as Iceland, New Zealand, and even Ireland are devoid of indigenous snakes.  If it were so easy for snakes to cross an ocean, why did they not cross the narrow channels of the British Isles?

 

Tetrapods

      The earliest legged vertebrates are called tetrapods.  They arose first on Old Red Sandstone, where they were geographically confined for a short while.[50]  Old Red Sandstone was comprised of eastern North America, Greenland, and transalpine Europe, which were at that time joined as a single, tropical continent.  But tetrapod fossils soon appeared in other widely diverse locations.  The first tetrapods in China appear at 355 million years ago.[51]  China was at that time a series of large islands on the other side of the world, and was separated by a vast ocean.  The tetrapods also spread to Australia about the same time, as known from the discovery of Metaxygnathus.[52]  By 333 million years ago, tetrapods in Australia were diverse, advanced, and they represented those known elsewhere in the world.[53]  Interestingly, the tetrapods in Australia looked a lot like those in North America, implying that some kind of migration occurred.

      The wide distribution of terrestrial and fresh water tetrapods raises interesting questions on how migrations happened.  Ahlberg et al, who described the Australian specimen, suggest that the conventional wisdom concerning the position of the continents is just plain wrong, and that Australia was further north and nearly adjacent to Greenland.[54]  Daeschler pointed to the fact that early tetrapods existed on North America, Europe, Eurasia, and Australia; and therefore surmised that tetrapod migrations to such diverse locales must be explained either in terms of the tetrapods' abilities to navigate salt water oceans or by continental connections.[55]  Carroll submitted that they at least inhabited the coastal waters, pointing to the marine affinities of Tulerpeton.[56] 

      As a case in point, the proto-tetrapod-like lungfish Soederberghia has been found in southeastern Australia, which is on the other side of the world from Greenland, where it was first found.  Southeastern Australia was at that time located very close to the South Pole.  Greenland, in contrast, was smack dab on the equator, and halfway around the globe.  It is strange to find the same genus occupying such diverse ecosystems.  Moreover, this fish was confined to fresh water and estuaries.  We know because it is only found in fossil beds where marine invertebrates are lacking.  In the Devonian, there was a very large ocean separating Greenland on one hand from Australia on the other – the former being part of Old Red Sandstone and the latter being part of Gondwana.  How did this non-marine fish get across that ocean?

      Thulborn et al described North America, which was connected to Greenland, as being "virtually at the opposite pole of the Early Carboniferous globe" from Australia.  To overcome this, they asserted that Gondwana had already collided with North America, thus linking Old Red Sandstone to Gondwana, and that Australia was in a tropical location – somehow being positioned northeastward from its presumed near Antarctic position.[57] 

      Yet, if Australia was tropical, then Antarctica was temperate, since it was connected to Australia's southern edge at the time; and if Antarctica was temperate, then why don't we find tetrapods on Antarctica at that time?  Tetrapods took a lot longer to get to Antarctica, where they first appeared in the earliest Triassic, over 100 million years since they first appeared on Old Red Sandstone, China, and Australia.[58]  Moreover, the Carboniferous ice age scarred Antarctica with glaciers – hardly the mark of a temperate climate.  To surmount the Carboniferous ice age problem, it must be supposed that Australia-Antarctica sped southward from the tropics to the South Pole in about 20 or 25 million years – a speed much greater than that which hurled India into Tibet thus forming the Himalayas.  In terms of climate and the Antarctic fossil record, it is perhaps better to stick with the original map drawn by plate tectonics, which shows Antarctica near the South Pole, and hence Gondwana still a good ways south of Old Red Sandstone, not in collision with it.  This is more consistent with what we know of the Carboniferous era than supposing Australia was tropical.  If this more conventional map is accepted, then the tetrapods must have traversed cold ocean water to the other side of the world in Australia.

      Or, if cold ocean water be thought too harsh for them, they were airlifted by extraterrestrials. 

      If we assume that continental connections between Gondwana and Old Red Sandstone were already happening in the late Devonian, then why don't we find any early tetrapods in Africa?  The point of contact between the two super-continents happened along the Morocco-Appalachian mountain ranges, at a time when they were positioned in the tropics.  The tetrapod-rich fossil beds that are found in Pennsylvania and eastern Canada are lacking in northwestern Africa.  Where are the tetrapods of Morocco? 

      This problem can be submitted as evidence for a supernatural or extraterrestrial presence in distant antiquity, which transported living creatures to places they could not otherwise have traveled.

 

Freshwater Fish Across Continents

      For freshwater fish, obstacles such as mountains, deserts, and climate can slow the spread of their range, but do not prohibit their geographic expansion indefinitely.  According to Darlington, "The only barriers that are fully effective against freshwater fishes seem to be those of salt water."[59]  Perhaps the best example of this is the Australian continent and its subsidiaries, New Guinea and New Zealand.  Although these locations do contain aboriginal freshwater fishes, they are generally of a type not found elsewhere.  One exception occurs in the genus Scleropages, which is found in both Australia and on the Asian mainland.  Darlington writes,

 

Whether Scleropages reached Australia through river systems, over ancient land connection, or partly through the sea I shall not try to say.[60]

 

River systems or land connection is very improbable, since if such a situation existed, more than just one genus would have crossed from Asia into Australia – because massive migrations of many species occur when land bridges are formed. 

      There is also a British fish in Africa.  The freshwater fish Clupisudis is known from the Eocene of Britain, but is found also in Africa.[61]  The fact that the Straits of Gibraltar, which separate Europe from Africa, were at one time a wide ocean in the not-so-distant past complicates any supposed terrestrial connection, and may indicate some paranormal or extraterrestrial source of transportation was involved.

 

 

 

Catfish

      Catfish first emerged in the Campanian of South America.  In less than 18 million years, these mostly freshwater fish had become established all over the world.  Catfish fossils are found in North America, Spain, Africa, and in India before the extinction of the dinosaurs.  What's remarkable is that all these continents were isolated from each other by large oceans during this time.  A few catfish are tolerable to brackish or marine waters.  It is possible that they traversed the oceans to all continents.  If true, they quickly adapted to freshwater, for the Mesozoic catfish of India appear to have been freshwater fish.  India was in the middle of the ocean at this time, halfway between Asia and Madagascar, hence entirely isolated from non-native freshwater fish migrations.[62] 

      The probability that catfish ventured outside the lakes and rivers of South America, into the ocean, even beyond the continental shelves into the deep ocean, and subsequently adapted again to freshwater on all continents, finally loosing their saltwater tolerance on nearly a worldwide basis, and accomplishing all this in just the last two phases of the Cretaceous, while other fresh water fish have not been able to do the same – the odds of this happening are not too far from the odds a skeptic would give extraterrestrial transport.  It is easy to see why sexually perverted space aliens might have been attracted to catfish.  They have so much in common – both are slimy, gray, mean, and ugly.