Gigantic Crocodile with T. Rex Teeth Was a Top Land Predator of the Jurassic in Madagascar
Paleontologists documented the features of a giant crocodile relative – the largest and oldest known “notosuchian”, predating the other forms by 42 million years.Little is known about the origin and early evolution of the Notosuchia, hitherto unknown in the Jurassic period.
New research on fossils from Madagascar, published in the peer-reviewed journal PeerJ by Italian and French paleontologists, begin to fill the gap in a million-year-long ghost lineage.Paleoartistic restoration of Razanandrongobe sakalavae scavenging on a sauropod carcass in the Middle Jurassic of Madagascar. Unlike extant crocodilians, this terrestrial predator had a deep skull and walked on erect limbs.
Deep and massive jaw bones armed with enormous serrated teeth that are similar in size and shape to those of a T-rex strongly suggest that these animals fed also on hard tissue such as bone and tendon. The full name of the predatory crocodyliform (nicknamed ‘Razana’) is Razanandrongobe sakalavae, which means “giant lizard ancestor from Sakalava region”.
A combination of anatomical features clearly identify this taxon as a Jurassic notosuchian, close to the South American baurusuchids and sebecids, that were highly specialized predators of terrestrial habits, different from present-day crocodilians in having a deep skull and powerful erect limbs. “Like these and other gigantic crocs from the Cretaceous, ‘Razana’ could outcompete even theropod dinosaurs, at the top of the food chain”, says Cristiano Dal Sasso, of the Natural History Museum of Milan.
Paleoartistic restoration of the head of Razanandrongobe sakalavae. Unlike extant crocodilians, this terrestrial predator had a deep skull.
Razanandrongobe sakalavae is by far the oldest – and possibly the largest – representative of the Notosuchia, documenting one of the earliest events of exacerbated increase in body size along the evolutionary history of the group.
Sezione di Paleontologia dei Vertebrati
Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano
Citation: Dal Sasso et al. (2017), Razanandrongobe sakalavae, a gigantic mesoeucrocodylian from the Middle Jurassic of Madagascar, is the oldest known notosuchian. PeerJ 5:e3481; DOI 10.7717/peerj.3481 https://peerj.com/articles/3481
Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/2017/07/gigantic-crocodile-with-t-rex-teeth-was.html
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