35 million years ago, as the ancient Tethys ocean shrinks for the last time, it is becoming a barren place. The abundant fish life of the past millions of years has moved on to deeper waters, and soon Tethys itself will be no more, as the African plate moves northward.
Yet there are still pockets of abundance. Seasonal schools of salmonids cluster around the entrances to lagoons on Africa's north coast, preparing to swim up rivers to their ancestral spawning grounds. Sharks also patrol nearby, but their attention is on larger prey. Fortunately for the sharks, the odd Basilosaurus which appears at the lagoon entrance has the same prey in mind. For this is the season when the smaller whales converge on these lagoons to give birth, much as grey whales of the Pacific would do, millions of years later. Both the sharks and the Basilosaurus look forward to the nutritional bounty of a young or sick whale... The Sahara desert yields many skeletons of Basilosaurus and other ancient whales. It had long been noted that while skeletons of juveniles of the other whales were found here along with the adults, only adults of Basilosaurus were found. With the current focus on behavioural aspects of paleontology, scientists recently realized that the most likely explanation for this is that the Basilosaurus were hanging around the birthing lagoons of the smaller whales, picking off the newborns.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |