Wadi Al-Hitan
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How it came to be
In Wadi Al-Hitan, Whale Valley, in Egypt's Western Desert about 150 kilometres south-west of Cairo, lie hundreds of fossils of archaeocetes, the earliest and now extinct suborder of whales. They record the passage of whales from land animals to ocean-going mammals, at the stage when they were losing their hind limbs.
Many are complete skeletons, some with stomach contents preserved. The largest is 21 metres long, with five-fingered flippers and hind legs, feet and toes. Fossils of sharks, crocodiles, sawfish and turtles help reconstruct the sea they lived in.
The first whale skeletons were found in the winter of 1902-1903. When four-wheel-drive vehicles made the valley reachable in the 1980s, collectors removed bones, prompting calls for protection. It was inscribed in 2005.
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