Scientists from the University of Michigan and the University of Casablanca have discovered ancestral skulls and skeletal fragments of modern whales in Morocco, Europe and North America. Research published in the journal PLOS ONE.
The fossils found by the researchers are about 40 million years old. They belonged to the ancient family of whales, basilosaurids (basilosauridae). Animals lived on land, but already had numerous adaptations to the aquatic environment.
Three new species have been named Pachycetus paulsonii, Pachycetus wardii and Antaecetus . They lived in Europe, North America and Africa (Morocco), respectively.
These animals were probably slow swimmers, similar to manatees, and lived in shallow seas, where they fed on slow-moving fish and invertebrates. In contrast, modern manatees eat plants. The authors suggested that these whale ancestors hunted in ambush, sat in the water and periodically surfaced to get air.