Peru discovers 40 million year old whale fossils in desert

A team of palaeontologists have unearthed a trove of ancient whale fossils, believed to be more than 40 million years old, in Peru’s Ocucaje desert.

The ancient fossil of a 40 million-year-old 'walking whale' has been
unearthed by Peruvian palaeontologists [Credit: Euronews]

The discovery provides new evidence of the evolutionary link between sea mammals and their land-dwelling ancestors.

Palaeontologist Rodolfo Salas explained the importance of the ground-breaking find: “We already knew about the paleontological richness of Ocucaje dating back 10-12 million years.”

“Now we can say that the most important primitive sea mammal deposit in South America is at Ocucaje,” Salas continued.