How A Four-legged Whale Discovery Has Buffled The Internet

A team of paleontologists first came across Phiomicetus anubis in 2008. Then, while searching through Egypt’s Fayum Depression — an area teeming with sea life fossils — they found remnants of the 43-million-year-old monster in middle Eocene rocks.

With a body length of almost 10 feet and weighing close to 1,300 pounds, paleontologists are confident that the four-legged whale once dominated the animal kingdom.

The study went on to describe how the whale used its incisor and canine teeth to “catch, debilitate and retain faster and more elusive prey items (e.g. fish) before they were moved to the cheek teeth to be chewed into smaller pieces and swallowed.”

However, paleontologists have much to learn about how ancient whales spread across the world.

The earliest known whale, Pakicetus attocki, lived in the shallow ocean near present-day Pakistan some 50 million years ago. Like Phiomicetus anubis, it had four legs.