New Whale Species Discovered in Egypt: 10-foot P. anubis Semi-Aquatic Walking Whale Lived as Top Predator 43 Million Years Ago

Forty-three million years in the past, a fearsome semi-aquatic whale terrorized the land and seas. It was named after the ancient Egyptian god of death, Anubis. A newly discovered 10-foot-long species named 'Phiomicetus anubis' was a force to be reckoned with as it walked on land and later swam in the water.

Phiomicetus anubis: The Fearsome Walking Whale

Phiomicetus Anubis was a truly fearsome predator of its time. The walking whale had powerful jaw muscles that could easily tear its prey limb by limb, which often included crocodiles, small mammals, and calves of other whale species.

Its skill resembled the jackal-headed Egyptian god, Anubis, making it more terrifying. Researchers observed that the then active predator was one of the terrifying animals for species that lived during its time.

Although the whales we know today thrive in water, their ancestors began on land and evolved gradually to dwell in the seas. The earliest whale known to science is the wold-size Pakicetus attocki that lived roughly 50 million years in the past in what is now known as Pakistan.

The newly uncovered P. anubis shed even more light on the remarkable whale evolution, according to Jonathan Geisler, an anatomy professor at the New York Institute of Technology not involved in the study, reports LiveScience.

He told Live Science that fossils have begun to give us a sense of when and how whales migrated out of the Indo-Pakistan oceanic region into various oceans across the globe.

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Studying the Walking Whale

In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, titled "A New Protocetid Whale Offers Clues to Biogeography and Feeding Ecology in Early Cetacean Evolution," paleontologists uncovered the fossilized remains of P. anubis back in 2008.

It was discovered during an expedition in the Fayum Depression, Egypt, a popular area for sea life fossils, including sea cows and whales that date back to the Eocene epoch roughly 56-33.9 million years in the past.

Mohamed Sameh Antar, the co-author of the study and leader of the expedition, made the discovery the first time an Arab team scientifically described a new species of whale fossil.

Researchers analyzed the partial remains of the whale included its teeth, jaws, skull, ribs, and vertebrae. The team discovered that the 600-kilogram species is the most primitive and earliest whale in the African continent from protocetids, a group of semi-aquatic whales.

The remains of P. anubis revealed that the group of semi-aquatic whales anatomically evolved new features and feeding strategies such as a long third incisor, reports DailyMail. Additionally, big muscles on its head suggest that it possessed a powerful bite force that allowed it to capture large prey.

Researchers say that they have discovered that its deadly and powerful jaws gave it the capability of tearing a wide range of large prey apart. P. anubis was not the sole whale fossil retrieved front he mid-Eocene Egypt. Its fossil came from the area where 'Rayanistes afer' were found, suggesting that the two may have lived in the same period and had a predator and prey relationship.