Whales are often called whales because they are animals that live in the ocean, but in fact they are not fish but mammals, early living on land, the earliest cetacean fossils found are 52 million years ago Bucky whale, unearthed in Pakistan, this animal is not much larger than the wolf, has aquatic characteristics, such as longer body, short limbs, with a long tail that can control the direction of swimming and provide propulsion.
Probably many friends can not associate whales and wolves together to imagine, because the size of the two is too big, any whale is much larger than the size of the wolf, the size of the blue whale is thousands of times the size of the wolf, and the size of the whale is very similar to the fish, no limbs and fur, the tail is like a horizontal fish tail, and the size difference between the size of mammals such as wolves is too large, but the reason why paleontologists think that whales are the evolution of this animal is because the existing fossil system of whales and their ancestors has been very complete. The evolutionary process of whales can be perfectly reflected in fossils.
On the 25th of this month, Egyptian paleontologists announced that they had found an unprecedented fossil of an amphibious four-legged whale in the region, dating from about 43 million years ago, a discovery that would better improve the evolution of whales from land to sea life.
Paleontologists found this primitive cetacean fossil in the Fayoum Depression in Egypt's western desert, which is located in the Eocene rock formation about 43 million years ago, and from its characteristics, this primitive cetacean belongs to the "protoclucae" amphibious four-legged whale fossil, about 3 meters long and weighs about 600 kilograms, about the size and weight of cattle, but not as tall as cattle, and it can be found that cetaceans at this time are larger than Bucky whales.
This paleontological archaeology is considered to be a new discovery unprecedented in cetacean research, and this primitive whale is also named after the king of the underworld (or death) in Egyptian mythology, called "Anubis proto whale", interestingly, the skull of this original whale is very similar to the "Anubis" in ancient Egyptian mythology, and it is a long and flattened "crocodile head" type.
↑ Figure right the portrait of the dog's head is both Anubis
By analyzing the characteristics of this cetacean through fossil analysis, paleontologists believe that the Anubis proto-whale could either move on land or live in the water, that it had strong jaw muscles, could easily catch fish, crocodiles and other small mammals, or the top predators in the food chain, and that it was a true "grim reaper" in the eyes of most animals at the time.
Some friends may have heard of the "Valley of the Whales" in Egypt, Africa, which is actually located in the Fayoum Depression in the western desert of Egypt, which is a world-famous paleontological fossil field, where a large number of ancient cetacean fossils have been unearthed, many species of cetacean fossils of the ancient whale suborder are found here, and these primitive cetaceans still retain the hind limbs that have not been completely degraded, which strongly shows the key evidence of the evolution of cetaceans from land mammals to marine mammals. It is also listed as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site.
The fossils of the Valley of the Whales also show that the Fayoum Desert in western Egypt was once the sea, many cetaceans survived and evolved here, and cetacean fossils can be unearthed in the desert, which explains the vicissitudes of the earth's climate and topography, and the cetaceans can evolve from the size of wolves to the size of giant blue whales, which also shows the magic of life evolution.
Resources:
"Science and Technology Daily" August 26 article "Egypt unearthed 43 million years ago four-legged whale fossils"