Ancient 10-Meter-Long Crocodile Discovered

[ScienceRocks]

Ancient 10-Meter-Long Crocodile Discovered

Ancient 10-Meter-Long Crocodile Discovered
January 12, 2016 | by Janet Fang

Photo credit: Comparison among Machimosaurus skulls. (A) M. buffetauti, (B) M. mosae (C) M. hugii, (D) M. rex. Reconstruction of M. rex body based on preserved elements (E). F. Fanti et al., 2016 Cretaceous Research

Lower Cretaceous sediments from an unexplored area of Tunisia have yielded the fossilized remains of a 10-meter-long marine crocodile – the largest ocean-dwelling croc ever discovered. Researchers named the new extinct species Machimosaurus rex, and it’s described in Cretaceous Research this week.
The articulated remains of the giant crocodylomorph were unearthed in December of 2014 during a prospecting trip at the Touil el Mhahir locality of Tataouine Governorate in southern Tunisia. The body was lying belly down with the head curved to the right side. After sorting through the sandy and clayish sediments, Federico Fanti of Università di Bologna and colleagues were able to identify skull fragments, teeth, vertebrae, ribs, a partial humerus, and osteoderms (the bony plates in the skin) of a never-before-seen species.

Its skull alone was up to 1.55 meters (5 feet) long – giving it an estimated body length of at least 9.6 meters (31.5 feet). The team named the species after the Latin word for “king,” a reference to its majestic size. Two views of the skull are pictured to the right.
M. rex belongs to a lineage called the thalattosuchian teleosaurids, marine crocodylomorphs that were thought to have gone extinct at the end of the Jurassic, before the Cretaceous. But at about 120 million to 130 million years old, M. rex is evidence that teleosauroids crossed the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary.

How cool! With science you learn more every day and discover more of our planets reality! Can't do that reading a 2,000 year old story of fiction!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Warmer climate = bigger creatures

 

[TheOldSchool]

Satan must've been pretty wiped after burying those bones to fool us a few hundred years ago

 

[Moonglow]

Satan must've been pretty wiped after burying those bones to fool us a few hundred years ago

He hired Mexican demons...