Massive 20-Million-Year-Old Whale Fossil Unearthed

0:00You're listening to UK News today, powered by the Daily News Now, and brought to you by NordVPN, fast, reliable online privacy. Links in the episode description. A family on vacation stumbled upon a massive 20 million-year-old whale fossil sticking out of the sand at Ocean Grove Beach on Victoria's. Bellarine Peninsula last December. The one-ton discovery, weighing about one ton, turned out to be one of the largest whale skeletons ever found in Australia. The finder, a visitor from Queensland, spotted the bones during a casual beach walk and quickly alerted museums Victoria. Teens from the museum and local coast authorities spend days using heavy equipment to carefully dig it up, wrapping up the excavation just yesterday. The family called it a mind-blowing chance find, with the spine and ribs still mostly intact. Paleontologists are thrilled, too, noting how rare it is to uncover so many connected bones from this era. Scientists believe it's from a primitive type of tooth whale that used echolocation,

1:02dating back 21 to 23 million years. This period saw huge shifts in oceans and climate, making the fossil key to filling gaps in whale evolution history. Now a Melbourne museum, scientists are diving into detailed studies that could reveal global insights into how whales adapted long ago.