Whale Found in Egypt Desert

clipped from news.nationalgeographic.com Egypt may not be the first place you'd look for whales, but once upon a time the Wadi Hitan desert was underwater and teeming with the sea giants. had excavated the first known nearly complete skeleton of a Basilosaurus isis (pictured). The 50-foot- long (18-meter-long), 40-million-year-old fossil was shipped to Michigan, where experts are preserving it. Later they will return the fossil to Egypt Basilosaurus had the serpentine shape of a sea monster and short, sharp teeth for hunting sharks and other prey. Unlike today's whales, it had no blowhole—the ancient behemoth had to raise its head above water to breathe. What's more, Basilosaurus still had the feet it inherited from its land-dwelling ancestors