This ancient whale species may hold the key to understanding how whales transitioned from land-based animals to marine animals.
whale species known to date, and one of the oldest specimens of the whale family found in Africa.
"The Eocene fossil sites of Egypt's Western Desert have long been the world's most important for understanding the early evolution of whales and their transition to a fully aquatic existence," said Erik Seiffert, co-author of the study, The Egyptian paleontologists Abdullah Gohar, Mohamed Sameh, and Hesham Sallam next to the holotype fossils of the newly identified basilosaurid whale, Tutcetus rayanensis, at Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center.
is either primitive retention or could be linked to the global warming event known as the 'Late Lutetian Thermal Maximum ,'" said Sanaa El-Sayed, co-author of the study, in a press release. Life reconstruction of two individuals of the extinct basilosaurid whale Tutcetus rayanensis, with the foreground individual preying on a nautilid cephalopod and another swimming in the background. Illustration by Ahmed Morsi.
According to the study, the basilosaurid whale species typically had a strong tail, flippers and small hind limbs, similar to back legs. These limbs may have been used for mating.
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