Lake Turkana

Lake Turkana, formerly Lake Rudolf, lake in central Africa, mostly in northwestern Kenya, with the northernmost tip in southwestern Ethiopia. Located in the Great Rift Valley, the shallow, narrow lake is 250 km (160 mi) long and covers an area of 7,100 sq km (2,700 sq mi). It is fed by the Omo River, from the north, but has no outlet. Its waters have a high rate of evaporation and are brackish. Lake Turkana supports large numbers of fish; crocodile and hippopotamus also abound. The lake shores were the site of extremely important discoveries of hominid fossils by British paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey, beginning in 1967. Included in the finds, which altered previously held views on human evolution, was “Turkana Boy,” a nearly complete skeleton dating back 1.6 million years.