SCIENCE / MEDICINE : Two-Legged Whale Fossil

The first fossil of a whale with hind legs and feet was reported last week by paleontologist Philip D. Gingerich of the University of Michigan. The 40-million-year-old fossil was found in the Zeuglodon Valley, a rich source of fossils about 95 miles southwest of Cairo.

The legs and three-toed feet were located about two-thirds of the way back on the 50-foot-long whale, Gingerich reported in the journal Science. Because the legs measured only about two feet from the head of the femur to the tip of the longest toe, he speculated that their function was to serve as guides during sexual reproduction.

The finding was particularly surprising because some predecessors of the whale had abandoned the ocean for dry land nearly 10 million years earlier.