43 Million-Year-Old Fossil Of Four-Legged Land Whale Has Been Uncovered
Image via ID 12059014 © Idreamphotos | Dreamstime.com
Scientists have recently uncovered a 43 million-year-old fossil of a previously unknown species of four-legged whales. This discovery helps chart the long suggested evolution of whales from land to sea.
The fossil was discovered in Egypt, and belongs to a Protocetidae, a group of extinct whales that were in the middle of the transition, the researchers said.
It was uncovered from the middle Eocene rocks in the country’s Western Desert. The area was once covered by sea, and has provided many discoveries that show the evolution of whales, as per Euronews Green and Reuters.
According to researchers, the whale, named the Phiomicetus Anubis, was around three meters (9.8 feet) long and weighed approximately 600kg (1,320 lbs). The fossil’s partial skeleton also revealed it was the oldest protocetid whale found in Africa.
“Phiomicetus Anubis is a key new whale species, and a critical discovery for Egyptian and African paleontology,” said Abdullah Gohar from the Mansoura University Vertebrate Palaeontology Centre (MUVP), lead author of the study.
A lot about early whale evolution in Africa is still unknown, with researchers hoping to conduct more searches in the region for fossils that may reveal new information about the transition of amphibious whales to aquatic creatures.
For more information, check out the paper here.
[via Euronews Green, cover image via ID 12059014 © Idreamphotos | Dreamstime.com]
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