The site is called Wadi El Hitan, dυbbed the Valley of Whales, located around 160 kilometers from the famous pyramids at Giza.
There is an ancient Egyptian desert, once a vast ocean, that guards the secret of one of the most remarkable transformations in the evolution of life on planet Earth.
Egypt is known as the land of Pyramids, Pharaohs, and golden sands. Countless jewels have been excavated from beneath Egypt’s sands, revealing a treasure trove of a time long gone.
It was home to numerous creatures that have long since been forgotten. One of these massive animals, over 50 feet long, had massive jaws and jagged teeth. It looked unlike anything living inside Earth’s oceans today.
The creatures eventually died, sinking to the prehistoric ocean seafloor.
Tens of thousands of years went by, and a fine protective mantle of sediment eventually built up over the beasts’ bones.
The prehistoric sea receded. The former seabed transformed into a vast desert as powerful winds armed with fine grains of sand began covering the surface little by little, eventually preserving the whales that would remain hidden for time to come.
The mighty Kings of Egypt build incredible mastabas, which evolved into massive pyramids. Egypt flourished and fell, and the land of Pharaohs was no more.
Then, more than one hundred years ago, massive fossils of long-gone beasts were revealed by the wind, which delicately preserved and revealed the fossils since time immemorial.
The site is so important that scientists argue the site reveals evidence for the history of one of the greatest mysteries in the evolution of whales: the species’ appearance as an ocean-going mammal from a previous life as a land-based animal.
These remains show these animals losing their hind limbs, hydrodynamic bodies (like those of modern whales) while presenting primitive bone structure aspects. Other fossil materials found at the site allow reconstructing the environment and the ecological conditions of the time.
Wadi el Hitan portrays the form and way of life during the transition from land animals to ocean-going mammals.
Αlthough the fossils discovered at the site may not be the oldest, their great density in the area and the quality of their preservation is to the degree that even some stomach contents have remained intact.
However, in the late 1980s, as all-wheel-drive- vehicles become widely available, people started visiting and documenting the site. Eventually, the Valley of Whales would attract scholars, fossil collectors, and even tourists.
People would go there and collect fossils without properly documenting or conserving the fossils. This led to the disappearance of many fossils from the site, prompting warnings for the site to be adequately conserved.
Many species of bony fish, sharks, and rays are represented at the site, but the largest number of fossils are isolated small teeth, which are often inconspicuous. There are also larger fish fossils, including the rostra and pegs of sawfish. In fact, the site features a sawfish rostrum of 1.8 meters long.
Wadi El Hitan is also home to a wide variety of fossilized shells and disc-shaped nummulite fossils.
Αccording to scientists, the strata in Wadi Αl Hitan belong to Middle Eocene, and it includes a vast mass of vertebrate fossils within 200 km2 of the desert.
While researchers have identified many whale fossils, they have also cataloged and reported sea cows’ fossils, among over one hundred different fossils.
Scientists were able to reconstruct their origin and conclude their form was serpentine, and the animals were carnivorous.
The site has been found to feature typical streamlined bodies from modern whales and shows us clear evidence of some of the primitive aspects of skull and tooth structure. In other words, the valley of Whales in Egypt is a unique site not only because of its diverse fossil library but because of the examples of fossils and their respective age.ostly frequented by the Gennec Foxes, who tend to visit the campsite at night searching for food.
Source: taxo.info
