Ancient fossilized fish found in Egypt that survived in hot waters
Fossilized fish dating back 56 million years have been discovered in Egypt’s Eastern Desert, shedding light on a time period when Earth was experiencing massive warming.
CAIRO — An Egyptian research team that includes Egypt's Mansoura and Tanta universities, the American University of Cairo and the University of Michigan recently discovered the remains of vertebrate fossils from sediments dating back 56 million years at a site in Egypt's Eastern Desert.
The scientific journal Geology published last month the details of the discovery of creatures that withstood highly elevated global temperatures at a site that is today in the Egyptian desert.
Several different types of bony fish were found, including the moonfish, the deep-sea hatchetfish and a predatory species known as bonytongues, which still have living relatives of their genus.
According to the study, these fish currently live in parts of the Indian and Pacific oceans, and the discovered fish lived in a harsh environment and weathered the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) during which the planet witnessed unprecedented global warming.
