'Footed' whale unearthed

2005-04-08 12:07

Cairo - US scientists working in Egypt's desert have discovered bones from the skeleton of a 42-million-year-old "footed" whale.

The discovery is expected to help unlock the secrets of the mammal's evolution, a Cairo daily reported on Thursday.

A University of Michigan research team headed by Philip Gingerich, a physical anthropologist, last week completed its discovery of a 16-metre whale skeleton from which it had found several bones in 1989, reported the daily al-Ahram.

Found at Wadi Hitan in the Fayoum governorate, some 100 kilometres south of Cairo, the fossilised remains of the whale belonging to the Basilosaurus species has four appendages.

Gingerich, who worked on the excavations in Egypt in the early 1990s, has conducted research on other ancient species of whales in Pakistan.

He told a publication that whales evolved in the opposite direction of land vertebrates, which generally went from being fish to amphibians or reptiles before becoming mammals.

Under agreement with the Egyptian government the skeleton is to be loaned to the University of Michigan for further study. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA