Paleontologists discover four-legged whale fossil

• Scientists have discovered a 43-million-year-old fossil of a previously unknown amphibious four-legged whale species in Egypt.
• It has been named Phiomicetus anubis after Egypt's god of death.
• The newly discovered whale belongs to the Protocetidae, a group of extinct whales that falls in the middle of their transition from land to sea.

About Discovery

• The fossil was unearthed from middle Eocene rocks in the Fayum Depression in Egypt's Western Desert.
• The new whale was about 3m long and weighed about about 600 kg.
• It was likely a top predator.
• Work in the region had the potential to reveal new details about the evolutionary transition of whales from being amphibious to fully aquatic.
• With rocks covering about 12 million years, discoveries in the Fayum Depression range from semi-aquatic crocodile-like whales to giant fully aquatic whales.