Skull and partial skeleton found in Morocco helps link ancient whale species

[Still Waters]

Three researchers, one with the University of Michigan, the other two with the University of Casablanca, have found a skull and partial skeleton in Morocco that they suggest link together several species of ancient whales.

The fossils found by the researchers were dated to approximately 40 million years ago (during the Eocene) and were identified as a member of Basilosaurid, a family of ancient whales that were land-based but had developed multiple aquatic adaptions, such as flippers. Prior research has shown they lived around what is now Africa, North America and Europe.

https://phys.org/news/2022-11-skull-partial-skeleton-morocco-link.html

In their paper published in the open access journal PLOS ONE, Philip Gingerich, Ayoub Amane and Samir Zouhri describe the fossils and how they tie together the evolution of land-based creatures that evolved into modern whales.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?