>>12037362So in this image we see:
Pakicetus -> Ambulocetus -> Dorudon -> Modern whales
But what does this actually mean? Because, for the average person who is into science and a little curious, they would assume that this means that ambulocetus is the ancestor of modern whales, and that it evolved into whales over millions of years.
But in reality, we say that ambulocetus and modern whales share a common ancestor.
This part is confusing to me. And I have a fucking bio degree. Do we actually ever say that "this animal evolved to this animal", or are we always just saying "these two animals share a common ancestor denoted by the 'node' in this cladogram"?
And obviously I would love to search this query online, but I would be flooded with creationist arguments about "transitional fossils" and some shit.
Is the reason we just say "they share a common ancestor" simply because we can never know 100% if this animal "evolved" into this animal through evolutionary time? Because right now, I don't think I've ever been taught about an animal that was on the "node" of a cladogram.
