Whale Fossil Discovered in Unlikely Place

While cutting through some Egyptian limestone recently, stone masons in Italy made an interesting discovery. A whale fossil! They called in experts who confirmed this was a 40 million year old whale. Then the fun really began. Well, fun for the archeologists paleontologists that is.

They went to the place where the stone was extracted and found prehistoric bone fragments and more. A bigger dig is currently underway. We hope this didn’t put the masons out of business.

National Geographic has a video report, with an unedited transcript:

“BEING MASONS WE WERE IGNORANT OF THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DISCOVERY WE HAD MADE” SAYS SUPERVISOR RICARDO FRANCIONI.

BUT THEY KNEW ENOUGH TO CALL IN SOME ITALIAN EXPERTS WHO DETERMINED THEY HAD INADVERTENTLY CREATED AN ALMOST PERFECT CROSS SECTION OF AN ANCIENT WHALE.

IT LIVED IN EGYPT 40 MILLION YEARS AGO.

FINDING ANCIENT WHALES FROM EGYPT, A COUNTRY THATS 95 PERCENT DESERT, MIGHT SEEM UNUSUAL — BUT IT ISNT.

Link – via yesbutnobutyes

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Baierman.