Wadi al-Hitan, the Valley of the Whales

In the desert of the Faiyum, about 150 kilometres southwest of Cairo, lie hundreds of fossils of some of the earliest whales, the archaeocetes, caught in the long change from land animals to ocean ones. They have the streamlined body of a modern whale with the older skull and teeth of their ancestors, five-fingered flippers, and, unexpectedly, hind legs with feet and toes; the largest skeleton reached 21 metres. About 1,500 skeletons of marine animals, whales and sea cows most conspicuously, lie within 200 square kilometres, a few exposed and most shallowly buried and slowly uncovered by erosion. The first were found in the winter of 1902 to 1903, but the valley was so hard to reach that it drew little interest for 80 years, until four-wheel-drive vehicles brought visitors and fossil collectors carried many bones away, which is what led to calls to protect it. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005 as the most important place in the world to show how whales evolved.