Primeval Giant Among Giants (African Scientist find skull of 18,000 pound Dinosaur eating Crocodile)

International Herald Tribune and The Journal 'Science' ^ | October 27, 2001 | Guy Gugliotta

[umbra]

The crocodile was a silent stalker, as long as a school bus and weighing almost 18,000 pounds. It cruised the primordial rivers of what is now Saharan Africa, looking for unwary dinosaurs to eat.

"It was absolutely enormous, said a University of Chicago paleontologist, Paul Sereno, of the 8,165 kilogram creature. "There is nothing that would be able to handle that animal. It's like a torpedo of muscle five feet in diameter. (with body armour) The skull of the world's largest living crocdile looks like an hors d'oeuvre by comparison." In an age of giants 110 million years ago Sarcosuchus imperator was a top-of-the-food chain predator with four foot jaws that could gobble fish 12 feet (4 meters) long. The ancient crocodile was probably able to scoot ashore to bring down dinosaurs weighing tons.

Reporting on the website of the journal Science, the team of paleontologists led by Mr. Serno for the first time described the habits of this beast, whose remains were found in Central Africa's bone-dry Tenere desert in an area of Niger called Gadoufaoua-"the place where camels fear to tread in the Tuareg language.

[SunkenCiv]

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Note: this topic is from October 29, 2001. Thanks umbra. Blast from the Past. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.