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Whale graveyard discovered dating back five million years

2026-06-10 21:51:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

A giant whale graveyard measuring about 1,200 km (745 miles) long has been discovered in the southeastern Indian Ocean.

The location, which is 7 km (four miles) deep, was found in the Diamantina fault zone, a series of ridges and trenches on the sea floor.

But it is the age of the remains - some of them dating back 5.3 million years - that has caused great excitement in the scientific community.

The underwater necropolis, which was discovered by a team of researchers from China, Italy and New Zealand, is full of organisms and species that "may be new to science," according to the journal Nature.

One of the study's authors, Xiaotong Peng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "The discovery of a necropolis of this scale was completely unexpected.

"The size of the distribution, the depth and the age range were far greater than anything we had imagined."

During 32 dives at the site, explorers collected samples from 485 whale fossil sites and active whale falls, and found a treasure trove of remains, including the skeleton of an extinct whale.

The beaked Pterocetus benguelae, which is 5.3 million years old, was discovered to be one of the fossilized skulls in the tombs.

A five-meter-long Antarctic minke whale carcass was the largest discovery made.

A new species, which the team has named Pterocetus diamantinae, after the country, was also discovered.

Jellyfish, worms and crustaceans are among the communities of creatures that live off the vast spread of corpses.

"Peng and his colleagues' encounter with a vast fossil graveyard is a truly unique discovery," wrote Stephen J Godfrey of the Calvert Maritime Museum in the journal Nature.

"Although the site has limited access, it seems very likely to hold many other interesting finds and will undoubtedly inspire more dives into similar environments."

"Peng and colleagues' article reminded me of a trailer for the first film in an epic film series. I hope there will be many more of these successful films in the future."