Desert whalesForty million years ago a vast area of the northern part of the Egyptian Western Desert was nothing but a sea. The whole of Fayoum was submerged; it was part of the Tethys Sea. In reality, Tethys Sea was so enormously big that some scholars call it Tethys Ocean rather than sea. When it finally receded, it formed what we know today as the Aral, Caspian and Black seas. In its bluish- green water dwelled creatures that evolved and survived or did not and became extinct. One of the biggest inhabitants of the ancient sea was Zeuglodon, the famous whale of Fayoum.