In southern Peru’s Ocucaje Desert, paleontologists have made a remarkable discovery: the fossilized remains of a massive creature that lived 40 million years ago, commonly referred to as the “walking whale.” The area is renowned for its abundance of ancient marine fossils, and the discovery of the creature’s leg bones, which closely resemble those of its land-dwelling ancestors, offers tantalizing evidence of the evolutionary link between amphibious and aquatic mammals. This find could provide important insights into the development of modern sea creatures.
The ancient fossil of a 40 million-year-old ‘walking whale’ has been unearthed by Peruvian palaeontologists
“We already knew about the paleontological richness in Ocucaje dating back 10 to 12 million years,” said paleontologist Rodolfo Salas. “Now we can say that the most important primitive sea mammal deposit in South America is at Ocucaje.”
While similar types of fossils have been found in Egypt, Pakistan, India and North America, this is the first discovery of its kind in South America.
This artist’s impressions shows what the ancient animal, which belongs to a group called Achaeocetes, may have looked like
Belonging to a group called Achaeocetes, the whale is an ancient sea mammal that has features similar to land dwellers.
Scientists believe the first whale ancestor was a hairy, four-legged omnivore that evolved into a range of amphibious species 50 million years ago. Whales then gradually lost connection between their backbone and legs and finally lost their hind legs completely about 45 million years ago… long before Melville penned Moby Dick.
This is the first time that such an old sea mammal has been found in South America
Peru’s Ocucaje Desert is the burial place for about 15 of these mammals, relatively well preserved thanks to the low level of oxygen in the substrate, which delayed decay caused by bacteria.
“There is probably a greater number of fossils in the sand but it takes high-tech equipment to locate and recover them,” said César Chacaltana, who headed a team during a tour of the site, according to the Daily Mail.
