There was a time when whales wandered the earth. Well, an early type of whale – a four-legged creature called an archaeoceti.
It’s a scary, unlikely thought, but here the evidence is brought to light: the skeletons of land-whales on the point of losing their hind legs.
This is the greatest concentration of prehistoric animal bones ever found.
Wadi Al-Hitan, Whale Valley, in the Western Desert of Egypt, contains invaluable fossil remains of the earliest, and now extinct, suborder of whales, Archaeoceti. These fossils represent one of the major stories of evolution: the emergence of the whale as an ocean-going mammal from a previous life as a land-based animal. This is the most important site in the world for the demonstration of this stage of evolution. It portrays vividly the form and life of these whales during their transition.
The number, concentration and quality of such fossils here is unique, as is their accessibility and setting in an attractive and protected landscape. The fossils of Al-Hitan show the youngest archaeocetes, in the last stages of losing their hind limbs. Other fossil material in the site makes it possible to reconstruct the surrounding environmental and ecological conditions of the time. Unesco