A 43 million-year-old fossil was discovered by scientists in Egypt on Wednesday. The amphibious four-legged whale species that was found helps trace the transition of whales from land to sea.
The fossil of the whale was found to belong to a group of extinct whales called 'Protocetidae' that falls in the middle of the transition, said researchers.
The fossil was unearthed from middle Eocene rocks in the Fayum Depression in Egypt's Western Desert which was an area that was once covered in the sea and has provided a rich seam of discoveries about the evolution of whales -- before being studied at Mansoura University Vertebrate Palaeontology Centre (MUVP).
"Phiomicetus anubis is a key new whale species, and a critical discovery for Egyptian and African paleontology," said Abdullah Gohar of MUVP, lead author of a paper on the discovery published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B to Reuters.
The genus of the whale's name honors the Fayum Depression and the species name refers to Anubis, the ancient canine-headed Egyptian god associated with mummification and the afterlife.
The big picture of early whale evolution in Africa still remains a mystery, despite the discoveries of multiple fossils in recent times. Work in the region had the potential to reveal new details about the evolutionary transition from amphibious to fully aquatic whales.
Discoveries in the Fayum Depression, with rocks covering about 12 million years "range from semiaquatic crocodile-like whales to giant fully aquatic whales", said Mohamed Sameh of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, a co-author to Reuters.
The discovery of the new four-legged whale has raised queries about ancient ecosystems and pointed research towards the origin, the coexistence of ancient whales in Egypt, said Hesham Sellam, founder of the MUVP and another co-author.
