Scientists discovered fossil of the four-feet whale, which is 43 million-years-old.
Scientists stated on Wednesday that they had discovered the forty three million-year-old vintage fossil of a formerly unknown amphibious four-legged whale species in Egypt that helps trace the transition of whales from land to sea.
The newly discovered whale belongs to the Protocetidae, a collection of extinct whales that falls in the center of that transition, the Egyptian-led crew of researchers stated in a statement. Its fossil was unearthed from center Eocene rocks in the Fayum Depression in Egypt's Western Desert, a place once blanketed by sea that has furnished a wealthy seam of discoveries displaying the evolution of whales, earlier being studied at Mansoura University Vertebrate Palaeontology Centre (MUVP).
The new whale, named Phiomicetus anubis, had an estimated body length of a few 3 meters (10 feet) and a body mass of approximately six hundred kg (1,300 lb), and was probably a top predator, the researchers stated. Its partial skeleton showed that it was the most primitive protocetid whale from Africa. Despite current fossil discoveries, the large photograph of early whale evolution in Africa has mostly remained a mystery, the researchers stated.
Work in the area had the ability to show new information about the evolutionary transition from amphibious to completely aquatic whales. With rocks covering approximately 12 million years, discoveries in the Fayum Depression "vary from semiaquatic crocodile-like whales to massive completely aquatic whales", stated Mohamed Sameh of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, a co-author.
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