Panorama of the Week: Valley of the Whales – Fayoum, Egypt
Filed Under: Whales with legs? In the desert?
That’s what you’ll find in the Valley of the Whales (Wadi El-Hitan) in Fayoum, Egypt. More accurately, you’ll find the over 35 million year-old fossilized remains of whales with short legs, appendages marking their evolution from land mammals to sea mammals.
It’s hard to imagine today, but the entire area you see in the panorama below was submerged, covered by the Tethys sea.
Makes you realize that our own human history is only a spec in the vastness of existence.
Panorama: Wadi El-Hitan (Valley of the Whales) – Fayoum, Egypt
For best panorama viewing results, press fullscreen (four arrows) and navigate around with your mouse.
Articles About Egypt
More Photos from Egypt
Disclosure: Our trip to Egypt and the UNWTO conference is being provided by Egyptian Tourism Authority. As always, the opinions expressed here are entirely our own.
April 30th, 2012 at 9:11 am
Beautiful!
April 30th, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Whales with legs?! Initially, this sounded intriguing. Now that I know it’s fossilized whales, it’s even more intriguing. Interesting find!
May 1st, 2012 at 3:50 pm
The landscape looks just about right for finding fossilized whales!
May 3rd, 2012 at 12:23 am
@Andi: Thank you!
@Ava: It is fascinating to see millions of years of evolution of the whales from medium-sized legs to mini-legs to no legs at all. Makes your imagination run wild!
@Sutapa: Exactly! The perfect environment to preserve the fossilized whale bones.
May 3rd, 2012 at 12:36 am
I never tire of these, another gorgeous one.
May 3rd, 2012 at 12:43 am
@Ayngelina: Gracias! And this place is even better in person!
May 7th, 2012 at 7:16 pm
Pretty barren landscape. Great photo.
May 13th, 2012 at 10:22 am
@andrew: Thanks! Wadi El-Hitan, barren and fabulous…and at the very edge of the Sahara Desert.
July 19th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
Wait wait…whales with legs? This has been photo documented? I’m not seeing it in the panorama. PS: what platform are you using for the panorama…it’s crazy smoothe!
July 25th, 2012 at 5:44 pm
@Jonas: You’re correct in that there are no photos of the fossils and skeletons that show the whales with ever shrinking legs in this panorama. You’ll have to take a look at some of the scientific sites to really see this in full.
As for this panorama, we use Kolor.com software – Autopano Giga to stitch the images into a flat panorama and then Panotour Pro to make this flash panoramic “tour.”