In Depth At between eleven and thirteen meters long it goes without saying that Purussaurus was an apex predator capable of attacking large prey. As a caiman crocodile, Purussaurus had an extremely stout and robust skull that housed large conical teeth suited for gripping and holding onto powerful prey. Purussaurus is one of the growing … Read more
In Depth Further Reading A giant crocodile from the Plio-Pleistocene of Kenya, the phylogenetic relationships of Neogene African crocodylines, and the antiquity of Crocodylus in Africa. – Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 32 (3): 587. – C. A. Brochu & G. W. Storrs – 2012.
In Depth Further Reading – A New Horned Crocodile from the Plio-Pleistocene Hominid Sites at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. – PLoS One 5(2). – C. A. Brochu, J. Njau, R. J. Blumenschine & L. D. Densmore – 2010. – A new cranium of Crocodylus anthropophagus from Olduvai Gorge, northern Tanzania. – Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e … Read more
In Depth With a temporal range that spans from the late Cretaceous to the mid Miocene, Diplocynodon is yet further proof of how perfect the crocodile form is for survival. Represented by several species, the Diplocynodon genus has one of the longest known temporal ranges for a specific crocodile genus, and seems to have been … Read more
In Depth The crocodiles seem to have been quite resilient to the effects of the KT extinction sixty-five million years ago that marked the death of the dinosaurs, as Brachychampsa is yet another genus of crocodylian that is known to have existed for several million years before and after this extinction event. Dyrosaurus is another … Read more
In Depth The naming of the Borealosuchus genus was born out of a revision of the genus Leidysuchus which has a reputation as something of a ‘wastebasket taxon’. So far four former species of Leidysuchus have been renamed as species of Borealosuchus, though two further species have now also been named. Borealosuchus was a mid-sized … Read more
In Depth With an estimated length of up to twelve meters long, Mourasuchus was one of the biggest crocodiles of all time. However despite this size Mourasuchus had a relatively weak jaw and skull construction combined with quite small teeth for its size. These two things do not portray an apex predator that wrestled large … Read more
In Depth Gryposuchus was initially known as Ramphostoma neogaues until the addition of the second species in 1912 when it was realised that Ramphostoma was already used and actually a synonym for a genus of blind snakes called Leptotyphlops. Although a synonym, Ramphostoma could not be applied as it was first used in 1860 and … Read more
In Depth Compared to some larger Cretaceous crocodiles such as Deinosuchus, Allodaposuchus was actually quite small, but it still would have been a serious danger to the smaller dinosaurs that were running across Europe during the Cretaceous. Given the speed of smaller ornithopod dinosaurs the best chance that Allodaposuchus had of making a kill would … Read more
In Depth Pristichampsus is a crocodile that bears all of the hallmarks of a terrestrial lifestyle rather than an aquatic one like todays crocodiles. The key clues to this lifestyle can be seen in the legs which are longer than those of semi-aquatic crocodiles to allow for more terrestrial locomotion. Additionally the ends of the … Read more