For over a century, the problem of where whales come from has plagued scientists. The most recent issue of  Scientific American , January 1999, page 26 discusses this question.

For a long time scientists have thought that whales developed from a now extinct wolf like animal called mesonychians based on the similarities in the teeth structure between them. Recently however, DNA research has revealed that they would more closely related to a group of animals called artiodactyls....this group includes animals such as pigs, camels,  and hippos. This assertion is not however supported by the fossil record according to William J. Sanders of the University of Michigan in the afore mentioned Scientific American. He points out that the earliest known hippo fossils (the closest match among the artiodactyls) are 15 to 18 million years old, but the oldest known whale fossils are 50 million years old. So how could something that is older come from something that is younger? More than twice as old?
If the whales and hippos shared a common ancestor, then the creature would had to have to have survived for 32 million years and there is no evidence of such a long lasting link.
Philip D. Gingerich also of Michigan University, is also not persuaded by the proposed ancestors to the hippos as candidates.
"In terms of fossils in the right time, in the right place and in the right form, [mesonychians] are the only things that we know so far that are candidates for the ancestry." S.A. p. 26.

The finding of an ancient whale fossil was thought to bring a deciding factor to the question but instead only clouded it further. Artiodactyls have a particular structure to their ankle bone.... a rounded head, which only they have. Study of the whale ankle fossil shows that the ancient whale's ankle had a more square head rather than the expected round, pointing away from artiodactyl ancestry. So one would think to look towards the only other candidate, the mesonychians. However there are other structure similarities with the artiodactyls, that the mesonychians do not have, such as the Ectal Facet.
As J.G.M. Thewissen, a paleontologist at Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine and his associates state in the October 1, 1998 issue of Nature:
"Our whale [fossil] doesn't look like an artiodactyl. Unfortunately, it also doesn't look like a mesonychian."

In conclusion, the case of the history  whales is an example of the many holes in the fossil record that forms the foundation of the theory of Evolution. Yet this theory is taught as fact in the schools of America.

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