Exceptional Whale Fossil Found in Egyptian Desert

Exceptional Whale Fossil Found in Egyptian Desert:

An American paleontologist and a team of Egyptians have found the most nearly complete fossilized skeleton of the primitive whale Basilosaurus isis in Egypt's Western Desert, a university spokesman said on Monday.

Philip Gingerich of the University of Michigan excavated the well-preserved skeleton, which is about 40 million years old, in a desert valley known as Wadi Hitan (the Valley of the Whales) southwest of Cairo, spokesman Karl Bates told Reuters.

Why, you might ask, is a primitive whale known as Basilosaurus?

Basilosaurus isis is one of the primitive whales known as archaeocetes, which evolved from land mammals and later evolved into the two types of modern whale.

But it looks like a giant sea snake and the paleontologists who found the first archaeocetes thought they were reptiles.