This new excavation contains a large group of fossilized whales, including Basilousaurus which is considered as the only fully complete version of its kind discovered so far in the world. It is the largest fossilized whale discovered ever in Wadi El Hitan World Heritage Site (The only natural World Heritage Site in Egypt). The discovered Basilousaurus is of 18 meters length and has advantage of a complete intact skeleton with the first time discovered smallest complete tail spines.

The Egyptian national task force team, Headed by Dr. Mohamed Sameh Antar, has also discovered structural fossilized remains of sea creatures inside this whale, precisely stomach place. These sea creatures have been identified, which included crab and Sawfish in addition to remains of a small whale that was preyed by the discovered whale. This highlights the quality of food for the whale, reflects the nature of the marine life and the creatures living in this area within the eras of time, which is traced back to approximately 40 million years.

The Egyptian national task force team also discovered a huge set of sharks’ teeth next to this fossilized structure that consisting thin layer jacketed some parts of it. This illustrates how these fishes used to feed on this whale after its death. It also reflects the huge numbers of them, which existed in abundance in the region in this period of time and died next to the whale and deposited on it. 

Excavation scientists of the Egyptian national task force team have chosen this whale to be the main figure of the Fossils Climate Change Museum of Wadi El Hitan that will be open soon. The unique features of this global discovery qualify it to become a central piece in the museum where it opens up new horizons for scientific research in the field of Vertebrate Paleontology, the study of ancient whales, feeding behavior and their relationship to other organisms living nearby. This may help answering researchers’ inquiry about the life of ancient whales.

It is worth mentioning that the discovery of the presence of whales in Fayoum began in 1902 through foreign expeditions, which revealed the presence of seven species of whales. The Basilousaurus was the first and most famous and important whale discovery that came after the fossilized whales of Pakistan, which has been living on the land and walk on legs. Consequently, the Basilousaurus appeared as a sea living creature. Scientists find small back unused legs, which, proves the evolution of whales that moved from living on land to living on water depending on climate change at that time.

In 2005, an international team from the University of Michigan headed by Prof Philip Gingerich and the Egyptian Ministry of Environment with the Egyptian Geological Museum, had an excavation of a Basilousaurus skeleton which was identified at that time as the most skeleton ever discovered in the World in terms of size as well as the intactness of its skeleton parts.

The First National Core Planning Team of Wadi El-Hitan has been in place since 2001 and comprises both Geologist Dr Mohamed Sameh Antar and Ecologist Dr Mohamed Talaat El-Hennawy of the Nature Conservation Sector of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency. The team was introduced the pioneer site plan for management infrastructure, open air museum and fossil museum. The implementation of the team’s plans and ideas had enhanced by the financial support from the Italian Cooperation Environmental Program, and enables the team to work intensively to promote Wadi El-Hitan Site as a destination of paleontological research and ecotourism with scientific support from Michigan University under the umbrella of Ministry of Environment. This was done through more than 14 years of scientific research field campaigns, planning and implementation of site infrastructure, preparing the nomination file for declaring the site as the first Natural World Heritage Site in Egypt by UNESCO.

This Egyptian national task force field team had established in 2012, which within the last three years, has achieved several geological expeditions and discovered very important fossils one of which was discovered for the first time in Egypt and the world. This discovery was a strong back feet of whales used to swim from the Eocene era which need to be studied in details by the members of the team before introduce to the public and scientific community.

for more information, kindly contact 

Dr. Mohamed Sameh Antar, Geologist and Wadi el Hitan Protected Area Manager

wrpashark@yahoo.com

Dr. Hany El Shaer, Programme Manager

Protected Areas, World Heritage and Biodiversity Programme

hany.elshaer@iucn.org