Brilio.net/en - A huge ancient crocodile has been discovered in Tunisia, northern Africa, by a team of archaeologist. Its body was longer than a great white shark, with mighty skull as big as one person.
This largest-ever marine-dwelling crocodile lived about 130 million years ago, at the dawn of a prehistoric period called the Cretaceous. At the time, large dinosaurs reigned the land, and huge reptiles dominated the seas.
The huge crocs had been nicknamed as Machimosaurus rex, which translates as fighting lizard-king"; an appropriate name for such beast.
It was over 10 meters long, about a size of a large bus, says the founders. The skull alone was over 1.6 meters long, as long as an average human body.
That awesome size makes it the largest "thalattosuchian" ever found. The name refers to an extinct group of marine reptiles that were closely related to modern crocodiles.
Accoording to co-discoverer Federico Fanti of the University of Bologna, Italy, the Machimosaurus rex have eaten anything on its way. As todays crocs are opportunistic predators, the ancient one have been too, he added.
"There's no question this animal had a terrific diet. Its teeth were designed for crushing hard material," says Fanti. "Whatever ends up too close to the jaws is supper in one way or another. Considering such a powerful bite, he was not that picky."
The animal has been specified by Fanti and colleagues in the journal Cretaceous Research.
The team has been combing through an area at Tunisia for seven years before the discovery. He was surprised when he founded several ancient skulls, as they usually only discover small fragments of bones or some teeth.
"We could see the outline of the body in the ground and counted more than one," he says. There may have been as many as four specimens. His team collected and studied one skull.
Though the remained fossils were so distinctly visible, nobody had formerly searched for fossils in that part of Tunisia, says he.
According to him, the newly founded fossils would change our understanding of the transition between the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
It has been indicated that there was a mass global extinction during this transitional time. "This discovery undermines that," says Fanti.
Many other large reptiles were already extinct by the end of the Jurassic era, and Machimosaurus rex seems to survive the extinction for further 20 million years before finally gone.
"We think that we are not looking at a global extinction but local extinction of different species," says Fanti. "Dependent on where in the world you are digging, you are going to find that some species survived and others did not."
However, this massive creature would be an addition to these 10 giant animals ever lived on ancient earth.
(brl/tis)
