The skeleton of a whale in the Egyptian desert. This representative of archaeocetes, literally ancient whales, swam in local waters tens of millions of years ago. Archaeocetes appeared in the late Cretaceous or early Paleocene. The last archaeocete, most likely belonging to the Basilosaurus, went extinct in the Oligocene.
In the winter of 1902-1903, well-preserved archaeocete fossils were found 150 km southwest of Cairo. Today, the site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is referred to by no other name than Wadi al-Hitan, that is, the Valley of the Whales.
