A mass graveyard of whale fossils have been uncovered in the Atacama desert in Chile. The bones date back between 6 and 9 million years old, and further analysis has shown they all died due to toxic algae they ingested.
Scientists believes the whales died over a period of 10,000 years old, and after consuming this algae, they wondered into an estuary and then onto a sandbank. The bones were so well preserved that there the remains of a male and female whale lay upon the bones of a juvenile.
The site is known as Cerro Ballena – “Whale Hill”.
The whales are said to be a kind of baleen whale, but other specimens have been found, including a type of aquatic sloth (must’ve been slow..), a walrus like whale and two seals, but researchers think there may be hundreds more animals.
A palaeontologist working on the site describes the find as a “discovery of global importance”.
Source: The Guardian
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