The specimen was long mislabeled, according to a new study. Paleontologists identified it as a previously undescribed genus and species of gavial—a cousin of crocodiles and alligators—which they named after the ancient Egyptian god Horus
Artist’s impression of the new crocodilian species
Adel Lee
Around 4,500 years ago, ancient Egyptians carved the Great Sphinx of Giza out of limestone in the Mokattam rock formation. Little did they know, the material they were digging through preserved something even more archaic: fossils of a long-extinct crocodile.
Researchers have identified a previously unknown species of gavial, a type of crocodilian with a long, thin snout, from a fossil originally found in the rock formation that the ancient Egyptians sculpted into the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza. The new identification corrects a previous erroneous classification, according to a study published October 7 in the journal Royal Society Open Science. It also sheds light on the fauna that existed in what’s now Egypt well before human-made monuments appeared on the horizon.
In the 1920s, several fossilized remains, including a largely intact crocodile-like skull, emerged from the roughly 45-million-year-old Mokattam Formation at a site near Cairo. Because of the bones’ resemblance to those of Tomistoma schlegelii—a living gavial native to Indonesia and Malaysia—experts originally assigned them to the same Tomistoma genus. Until now, the well-preserved skull was the holotype, or name-bearing representative fossil, for the extinct T. cairense.
The skull was long thought to represent the extinct Tomistoma cairense. Karim Zanaty
Thanks to modern paleontological techniques like micro-CT scanning, which allows researchers to see inside fossils without breaking them, the team behind the new work found many differences between Tomistoma and the Mokattam Formation crocs. Comparing measurements of the skull to those of modern and fossil gavials revealed that the roughly 18-inch-long noggin represented not just a new species, but a new genus as well.
They named it Herugavialis cairensis, drawing inspiration from the Egyptian god Heru, also known as Horus. Some Egyptian texts call the Sphinx “Horus of the Horizon.” The associations between the H. cairensis skull and the iconic Sphinx go beyond the material that yielded them. Both are missing the tips of their noses.
Did you know? The origin of the Sphinx’s name
The Egyptians did not refer to the great statue as the Sphinx. Rather, ancient Greeks started calling it that around 2,000 years after it was carved. They possibly did so because of its resemblance to their mythological sphinx, which had a lion’s body, a woman’s head and an eagle’s wings.
“We seek to connect Egypt’s deep natural history with its human history and the legacy of ancient Egyptian civilization,” study co-author Hesham Sallam, a paleontologist at Mansoura University in Egypt, tells the Washington Post’s Elijah Wolfson. “Crocodiles were part of the Nile ecosystem, which was central to Egyptian life, and they held an important place in ancient Egyptian belief and culture.”
Gavials, cousins of crocodiles and alligators, were once found throughout the world. The Mediterranean region was home to a diverse community of crocodilians, including gavials, during much of the last 50 million years, lead author Paul Burke, a paleontologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, says in a statement. In fact, H. cairensis would have shared its shallow marine habitat with at least two other gavial species. Today, however, there are only two surviving gavials: the previously mentioned T. schlegelii and Gavialis gangeticus, which is clinging to habitats in Nepal and northern India.
Both are endangered, Burke tells Science News’ Jake Buehler. “So we should know about them and their long history.”
Correcting the fossil species’ identification also “helps paint a better picture of what large predators were like in the region,” Alex Hastings, a paleontologist at the Science Museum of Minnesota who did not participate in the study, tells CNN’s Taylor Nicioli. “This expands the known variety of forms of these amazing long-snouted crocodilians across the Mediterranean in ancient times.”