Ancient cetacean fossils photographed on March 11 in the "Valley of the Whales" in Egypt's Faiyum province. Located deep in the desert in Egypt's Fayum province, the "Valley of the Whales" is an important discovery and exhibition site for ancient cetacean fossils. It was a vast ocean 40 million years ago, but now it is a desert, with ancient whale fossils scattered among them and wind-eroded sandstone scattered heres. It was inscribed on the World Natural Heritage List in 2005, becoming Egypt's first World Natural Heritage Site. Xinhua News Agency issued on March 12, 2022
The Valley of the Whales (Wadi Hitan) is called "Wadi Hitan" in Arabic, Wadi is "River Valley", and "BlackTan" is the plural of whales, indicating the number of whales here at that time. Due to geological changes, it was a sea area tens of millions of years ago, and there were swarms of whales, so it was named Whale Valley.
As early as the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Egypt, Germany, the United Kingdom and other geological archaeologists began to explore the Valley of the Whales, and found quite valuable fossil specimens of marine paleontology, such as spiny fish, sharks, sea snakes, turtles, crocodiles, manatees and whales. The most precious of these is the whale, and there are as many as 5 types of whales.
In April 2005, Philip Kingoridge, a paleontologist at the University of Michigan in the United States, made a major archaeological discovery in the Valley of whales. His team of archaeologists found fossil whale bones, which were 18 meters long and "the entire skeleton from the spine to the tail" could be completely integrated. The key is also that, after scientific research, this whale is called "mechanical tooth whale", which is a kind of Archaeopteryx whale of the Archaeopteryx and has disappeared.
On March 11, visitors visited the "Valley of the Whales", located deep in the desert of Egypt's Faiyum province, where ancient cetacean fossils were found and exhibited. Xinhua
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