Indian scientist establishes Ganga dolphin is older than blue whales

RANCHI: Senior Scientist at Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad Dr SK Verma has proved that Ganga dolphins are living fossils from the Jurassic era and even older than blue whales. Having the acclaim of discovering universal primal technology also known as DNA barcoding along with another renowned scientist Dr Lalji Singh, Verma has been working on the dolphins of Ganga over a long period of time.

He was here on Sunday to speak about the importance of genetic mapping of species in the preservation of biodiversity. In course of his hour-long presentation, Verma said that way back in 2007 he and Dr Singh together had claimed that Ganga dolphins are living fossils and should be preserved. “A recent publication in the ‘Science’ journal has claimed that ancestors of blue whales had teeth and the fossil of such a whale has been found by the scientists in an island of New Zealand,” he said. Verma argued that dolphins and whale belong to the same order Cetacea but while dolphins are toothed whales don't have teeth. "We can say that ancestors of blue whale and dolphin of today were contemporary," he said.

Verma has recently completed the mitochondria sequencing of the Ganga dolphins and about to publish the results. Expressing gratitude to Padamshree RK Sinha, vice chancellor Nalanda Open University who is also known as dolphin man of India, Verma said that in course of his campaign for dolphin preservation Sinha had kept some samples of dolphin which helped him create the DNA sequence. “Once the results are published it would help scientists understand many things about dolphins. From their migration pattern to their family traits and the way they have adapted in ecology in course of time,” Verma said.

Both the scientists were here to attend the first environmental fair organised jointly by Yugantar Bharti and Nature Foundation and the seminar on biodiversity was chaired by the minister, food and civil supplies Saryu Rai.