Fossils of Ancient Whale with Legs Found in Egypt

Fossil of whale ancestor discovered; it had four legs and was likely capable of both walking on land and swimming.

The remains, dating back 43 million years, were found in Egypt and analyzed by a research group led by the Egyptian University of Mansoura, who published the work in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

It is known that modern whales are the descendants of a group of land-dwelling mammals that were probably very similar to deer, and based on fossil evidence, the first fully aquatic whales are thought to have evolved in Asia about 50 million years ago.

The remains found now in Egypt, in the desert area of ​​Fayum which in the past was covered by the sea and from where a large quantity of marine fossil finds come, are the first evidence of a semi-aquatic whale found in Africa.

The new individual was probably about 3 meters long, for 600 kilos of weight, and its particular jaws suggest that it was also a good predator. It belonged to the Protocetidae, a group of extinct whales that were protagonists of the transition that brought these mammals to become fully aquatic animals. The new species has been renamed Phiomicetus anubis in honor of the Egyptian deity Anubis, the jackal-headed god and protector of the underworld.