Whales used to walk on land, Egyptian researchers identify new fossils

Whales weren\’t always just aquatic animals, as newly identified fossils reveal that whales once had legs and walked on land.

Egyptian scientists have published a new study claiming that whales were not always exclusively aquatic animals – they once walked on land.

The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, details the discovery of a fossil that was discovered from the dirt in 2008. The fossil was found in the western desert, and since its discovery, researchers have assembled a team and begun its examination. Their findings were published in the aforementioned journal just last month.

According to the team\’s lead paleontologist, Hesham Sallam, “this is the first time in the history of Egyptian vertebrate paleontology that an Egyptian team has led the way in the documentation of a new genus and species of four-legged whale.” The researchers say the creature lived 43 million years ago and expanded human knowledge about the evolution of whales and how the species went from herbivorous land mammals to the giant carnivores of the ocean we know today.

Jonathan Geisler, an expert in mammalian evolutionary history at the New York Institute of Technology, said: “This is yet another new species of primitive whales from the time when they had four functional limbs.”