Wadi Al-Hitan (Whale Valley)

Recently inscribed on UNESCO's World Heirtage List.

From the Advisory Body Evaluation:
The property is nominated for its fossil values, which are centred on the fossils of ancient whales from the earliest, and now extinct, suborder of whales, the archaeoceti (or archaeocetes). These are the ancestors of the two modern suborders of cetaceans (Mysticeti and Odontoceti). The whale fossils of Wadi Al-Hitan represent one of the iconic stories of evolution: the emergence of the whales as modern ocean-going mammals from a
previous life as land-based animals. The whales of Wadi Al-Hitan, in evolutionary terms are amongst the youngest
archaeocetes, and are in the last stages of losing their hind limbs and have taken on the typical streamlined body form of modern whales, whilst retaining certain
primitive aspects of skull and tooth structure. This represents a transition from living only in shallow coastal waters to being ocean-going animals, able to spread worldwide.