Modern-day Nile crocodile
Researchers excavating a coal mine in Colombia have discovered a previously unknown species of prehistoric crocodile. The beast is described in the September 15 issue of the journal Palaeontology.
The freswhwater crocodile, named Acherontisuchus guajiraensis, lived some 60 million years ago in swampy habitats shared with Titanoboa, the world’s largest known snake. The crododile reached a length of 20 feet, roughly the maximum size of today’s saltwater crocodile.
Unlike another ancient crocodile found at the same site, the newly discovered species appears to have had a specialized diet, feeding on lungfish and bonefish. It is the first known land animal from the Paleocene New World tropics specialized for eating fish, according to the researchers.
“The general common wisdom was that ancestrally all crocodyliforms looked like a modern alligator, that all of these strange forms descended from a more generalized ancestor, but these guys are showing that sometimes one kind of specialized animal evolved from a very different specialized animal, not a generalized one,” said Jonathan Bloch, the associate curator of vertebrate paleontology of Florida Museum, who led the excavation with paleobotanist Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. “It’s really showing us a level of complexity to the history that 10 years ago was not anticipated.”
The researchers say the croc is a relative of modern crocodiles.
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