The Most Reality-Bending Finds Buried in the Sahara

Bright Side

The Sahara Desert might look like an endless sea of sand, but it's hiding some of the most mind-blowing secrets under its surface! 🌵 Scientists have uncovered the bones of ancient whales—yes, whales—proving this desert was once an ocean millions of years ago. There are also mysterious stone carvings and tools from prehistoric humans who thrived here when it was a lush, green paradise. Oh, and let’s not forget the eye-popping “Eye of the Sahara,” a massive, circular structure visible from space. Some even believe it could be the remnants of the lost city of Atlantis! The Sahara is like nature’s treasure chest, packed with finds that bend reality and rewrite history. 🏜️✨  Credit: Remnants of an Ancient Lake: By Joshua Stevens/ NASA Earth Observatory, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146304/remnants-of-an-ancient-lake megalake: By NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, https://www.si.edu/stories/ancient-megalake-discovered-beneath-sahara-desert CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0: Bandringa rayi fossil shark: By James St. John - https://flic.kr/p/pnXaHf, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36594184 Spinosaurus skeleton: By Kabacchi - https://flic.kr/p/7dqLn2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8385023 Spinosaurus swimming: By Mike Bowler, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38571896 Erg Chech 002: By Steve Jurvetson - https://flic.kr/p/2kuWqYs, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=105132919 Pink halite: By James St. John - https://flic.kr/p/2iigYK9, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=95007989 Pink snow: By James St. John - https://flic.kr/p/Cdc7BU, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=129024028 CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/: Cothurnocystis: By Haplochromis, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10946202 Cothurnocystis elizae CRF: By Dwergenpaartje, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23379107 Hunsrück-Schiefer Fossil Homalozoa: By Hunsrück-Museum Simmern, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23481044 Tooth of Spinosaurus: By Utahraptor, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15819318 Wadi Al-Hitan: By Hatem Moushir, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32784367 CC BY-SA 4.0 By Utahraptor - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15819318: Metriorhynchus stomach contents: By Skye McDavid, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=108060164 Macrospondylus bollensis: By Didier Descouens, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12699912 Castericystis sprinklei: By Didier Descouens, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76425026 Spinosaurus Crane: By Didier Descouens, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11868466 Machimosaurus: By DiBgd, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42204283 Machimosaurus buffetauti: By Young, Mark T.; Hua, Stéphane; Steel, Lorna; Foffa, Davide; Brusatte, Stephen L.; Thüring, Silvan; Mateus, Octávio; Ruiz-Omeñaca, José Ignacio; Havlik, Philipe; Lepage, Yves; & de Andrade, Marco Brandalise, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45809541 Cretaceous 90 ma map: By Merikanto, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=118829487 CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0: Whale fossils: By Tom Horton, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6822293 CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo/: Whale Valley: By Guy Debonnet, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58158101  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00Well, there you are. The sun is scorching, you're thirsty. All you can think about

00:05is water and ancient bones under your feet. You're wandering through the Sahara, the

00:11largest hot desert on Earth. Right now, you're crossing a stretch of sand called Whale Valley.

00:18And all over these 75 square miles of land, fossils cover the ground so thickly that you

00:23can't help but step on them. Paleontologist Hesham Salam says it's an unusual picture

00:29in this place. The bones are poking right out of the cliffs, as if they're calling

00:34to you to come check them out. You can spot ribs scattered all over the place.

00:40Look at these vertebrae. They're giant. Ooh, the creature they once belonged to must

00:44have been up to 65 feet long. The fossils show that the animal had a streamlined body

00:50like today's whale, but still had features like hind legs and feet. For scientists, it

00:55means a very exciting thing. They might've discovered a fully intact skeleton of a prehistoric

01:01whale. It was an animal that lived in this area when Egypt was underwater.

01:06You see, today, the Valley of the Whales is the world's largest ancient whale graveyard.

01:12You're likely wondering what marine animals are doing in a desert more than 100 miles

01:16away from the nearest coast. Well, millions of years ago, this desert was at the bottom

01:22of a massive ocean called the Tethys, which stretched from Europe to India. When sea

01:27levels dropped, the ocean left behind a seabed covered with fossils. And today, the fossils

01:33of some of the earliest known whales rest here, which gives researchers a peek into

01:37how today's massive ocean whales may have evolved.

01:42The fossils here are super detailed, even with some stomach contents still intact. Uh-oh.

01:48Scientists have also found fossils of ancient sharks, crocodiles, and turtles, helping to

01:53recreate what this marine world looked like millions of years ago.

01:58The first whale bones were discovered in 1902, but it wasn't until the 1980s that people

02:04really started to explore the area, only when access to this area became better. Sadly,

02:10some fossils had been taken away by collectors before the site turned into a protected area.

02:15Most of the fossils are just under the surface, slowly revealed by erosion.

02:21Whale Valley gives us an amazing glimpse into millions of years of ancient coastal marine

02:25life. But let's move further – ancient whale

02:29fossils aren't the only discovery you're going to make today.

02:33For over 150 years, scientists have been puzzled by a strange creature that lived millions

02:38of years ago. But now, thanks to some amazing fossils found in Morocco, they've finally

02:44figured it out. Look at them. These creatures are called

02:47blablabla – nah, I'm kidding – Stylophorans. They look like flattened armor with a long

02:53arm sticking out. Researchers discovered these creatures in 2014 and were shocked.

02:59The fossils dated back around 478 million years. They found around 450 specimens, and

03:06to their surprise, some even had soft tissues preserved, which is super rare. Before this,

03:12they only knew Stylophorans from their hard parts. Originally, scientists thought these

03:17creatures were good old echinoderms – animals like sea urchins and starfish.

03:23But new discoveries proved that they had a core body and feeding arm, similar to modern

03:28starfish, complete with a water vascular system to help them move and eat.

03:33This finding ends a long debate about where Stylophorans fit in the animal family tree.

03:38Now we know they're related to echinoderms, but are more advanced because they don't

03:43have the typical 5-ray symmetry. Ooh, come here and look at this giant fossil.

03:49It was found in the Sahara and gave scientists new insights into the Spinosaurus, the largest

03:55carnivorous dinosaur we know about. These 95-million-year-old remains also confirm that

04:01it was the first known swimming dinosaur. The Spinosaurus had flat, paddle-like feet

04:07and nostrils on the top of its crocodile-like head, perfect for staying underwater. It was

04:13a pretty weird dinosaur with a long neck, trunk, tail, and a 7-foot sail on its back,

04:19so it must've spent a lot of time in the water.

04:23At over 50 feet long, Spinosaurus might've been even larger than T. rex. The first Spinosaurus

04:30remains were discovered about 100 years ago in Egypt. But only this new fossil, found

04:35in Morocco, helped scientists reconstruct this dinosaur for the first time.

04:42Researchers paid attention to the creature's shorter hind limbs and wide claws. These features

04:47point to adaptations for life in the water. Its snout and dense bones also suggest it

04:53was a swimmer, while its spiked tail likely attracted mates. Hey, good-lookin', come

04:59here often?

05:00And here's another astonishing find made in Tunisia – the remains of Machimosaurus

05:05rex. So far, it's believed to be the biggest crocodile ever. This ancient croc was about

05:1132 feet long and weighed around 66,000 pounds. It was a top predator around 130 million years

05:19ago, and its skull was over 5 feet long. This discovery is a big deal, because it shows

05:26that these crocs stuck around longer than we thought.

05:30Before this, scientists believed that they disappeared during a minor extinction event

05:34between the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

05:38Now let's go back to the fact that the Sahara was once underwater, and some of the largest

05:43sea creatures ever lived there. A study published in the Bulletin of the American Museum of

05:48Natural History speaks about an ancient body of water called the Trans-Saharan Seaway.

05:54It existed between 100 and 50 million years ago, covering parts of Western Africa. Scientists

06:00spent two decades trying to recreate this prehistoric underwater world. They found

06:05it was warm and shallow, home to some pretty terrifying creatures, including 5-foot-long

06:11catfish and 40-foot-long sea snakes. Yikes!

06:15The seaway was cut off from larger oceans for long stretches, which may have helped

06:20these predators grow larger because resources were always available. It's a classic case

06:25of evolution at work, leading to what scientists call gigantism in isolated environments.

06:33But all that water didn't just disappear with no trace. Under the sands of the Sahara,

06:39scientists have discovered a massive ancient lake, which they're calling a mega-lake.

06:44Make sense?

06:45This lake formed around 250,000 years ago, when the Nile River flooded the eastern Sahara.

06:51At its biggest, this lake covered over 42,000 square miles. It's about half as big as

06:57Kansas.

06:58They also found evidence of a smaller lake, 93 miles west of the Nile, at a slightly lower

07:04level and covering 18,600 square miles. All of this adds to growing evidence that once,

07:11North Africa had many lakes that might have created migration routes, helping early humans

07:16move across the continent.

07:19Now in the Sahara, you can find not only fossils of bizarre animals. In May 2020, some weird

07:26rocks with greenish crystals were discovered in a sandy region in southern Algeria's Sahara

07:32Desert. When scientists checked them out, they found out these rocks weren't from

07:36Earth. They were actually pieces of a meteorite called Erg Chek 002.

07:43This meteorite is super old, like the oldest volcanic rock ever found. It melted ages ago

07:50in the fiery heart of an ancient protoplanet that no longer exists. Researchers had recently

07:56published a study in Nature Communications, revealing that they have analyzed lead and

08:01uranium isotopes in Erg Chek 002 and found out it's more than 4.5 billion years old.

08:09Another cool discovery made in the Sahara is quite unexpected. A few years ago, scientists

08:14found what they think are the world's oldest colors and their bright pink. These pigments

08:20were uncovered from rocks that are around 1.1 billion years old in the Sahara Desert.

08:25The colors came from microscopic organisms, as animals didn't exist back then. The discovery

08:31was made by a PhD student who crushed the ancient rocks and analyzed the pigments. These

08:38pink pigments are actually ancient chlorophyll from photosynthetic organisms that lived in

08:43an ocean that's long gone. Researchers are now sure that this finding could help explain

08:49why larger, complex creatures showed up much later in Earth's history.

08:55Before these colors were discovered, scientists didn't know what was missing in the food

08:59chain that delayed the evolution of larger animals. Now, they understand that tiny cyanobacteria

09:06were at the bottom of that chain. Apparently, this discovery is not just about finding some

09:11old pink stuff. Scientists believe it's a breakthrough in understanding the history

09:16of life on Earth.

09:20That's it for today! So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like

09:25and share it with your friends. Or, if you want more, just click on these videos and

09:28stay on the Bright Side!

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