Fossils of Egypt

Fayoum, Petrified wood protectorate in New-Cairo Area/ Cairo-Suez desert road & entire Western Desert of Egypt is covered in Petrified wood.

This is one of the clues that the region was a tropical climate. The petrified wood is very diverse and many samples are very beautiful, often actually littering the ground in certain areas.

• Turtle fossils in Fayoum
  • Testudo ammon, a large land tortoise
  • Podocnemis blanckenhorni river turtle
  • Stereogenys pelomedusa tropical land turtles
• Gigantic snake fossils found in the Qasr al-Sagha Formation.
  • Gigantophis
  • Pterosphernus
• Tomistoma, a crocodile type animal.

The area of Uganda bordering Lake Victoria and the upper Nile River area is not unlike the climate of the Fayoum long ago, where many bird fossils have been discovered.

• ospreys (Pandionidae)
• Gigantic shoebilled stork (Balaenicipitidae)
• jacanas, sometimes called lily-trotters (Jacanidae)
• herons, egrets, rails (Rallidae)
• cranes (Gruidae)
• flamingos (Phoenicopteridae)
• storks (Ciconiidae)
• cormorants (Phalacrocoracidae)
• An ancient eagle named Accipitridae

• large Hyrax (Megalohyrax oecaenus)
• Elephants
• mastodons
• Fayoum's whale or Zeuglodon or more precisely the Basilosaurus in Fayoum's Wadi Zeuglodon (or wadi al-Hitan, Whale Valley)
• Another whale in Wadi Zeuglodon is the Dorudon
• Arsinoitherium, a rhinoceros like animal with two horns
  • Arsinoitherium zitteli
  • Arsinoitherium andrewsi
• Elephants (mastodons) in Fayoum
  • Moeritherium in Fayoum, and in Wadi Naturn
  • Palaeomastodon
  • Phioma
• Apterodon
• Pterodon
• Hyaenodon
• Sirenia (Sea Cow)

The Fayoum primates

• The Lower sequence primates
  • Oligopithecus savagei
  • Qatrania wingi
• The upper sequence primates
  • Catopithecus browni
  • Proteopitheus sylvia
  • Oligopithecus
  • Apidium moustafai
  • Apidium phiomense
• Parapithecus fraasi
• Parapithecus grangeri
• Aegyptopithecus zeuxis
• Propliopithecus, (P. chirobates, P. ankeli, P. haeckeli and P. markgrafi)