MessageToEagle.com - A gigantic crocodile, more than 27 feet in length, which was large enough to swallow humans, once
co-existed with our ancestors in East Africa, say researchers.
Today it is an extinct species from the Pliocene and Pleistocene of the Turkana Basin in Kenya.
A team at the University of Iowa says the new species lived between 2 and 4 million years ago in Kenya.
It resembled its living cousin, the Nile crocodile, but was more massive, the 'Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology' reported.
"It's the largest known true crocodile. It may have exceeded 27 feet in length," Christopher Brochu, associate professor of geoscience, who
led the team of researchers, said.
By comparison, the largest recorded Nile crocodile was less than 21 feet, and most are much smaller," Christopher Brochu,
added.
The researchers recognised the new species from fossils examined three years ago at the National Museum of
Kenya in Nairobi.
Some were found at sites known for important human fossil discoveries.
"It lived alongside our ancestors, and it probably ate them. We don't actually have fossil human remains with croc bites,
but the crocs were bigger than today's crocodiles, and we were smaller, so there probably wasn't much biting involved," Brochu said.
Although the fossils contain no evidence of human/reptile encounters, crocodiles generally eat whatever they can swallow, and
humans of that time period would have stood no more than four feet tall.
The illustration shows the comparative sizes of ancient/modern crocodiles and ancient/modern humans.
Illustration by Chris Brochu.
He said that there likely would have been ample opportunity for humans to encounter crocs. That's because early man, along with
other animals, would have had to seek water at rivers and lakes where crocodiles lie in wait, a university release said.
The crocodile Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni, not directly related to the present-day Nile crocodile, is named after John Thorbjarnarson,
famed crocodile expert and Brochu's colleague who died of malaria while in the field several years ago.
“We really don’t know where the Nile crocodile came from,” Brochu says, “but it only appears after some of these prehistoric
giants died out.”
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MessageToEagle.com - A gigantic crocodile, more than 27 feet in length, which was large enough to swallow humans, once
co-existed with our ancestors in East Africa, say researchers.
Strange things happen in the world of biology. Have you ever heard of ants that can turn into zombies?
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Many have a low opinion of people who lived in mediaeval times.
We often consider our ancestors primitive and uneducated.
Recent studies give us a unique opportunity to reveal the inner thoughts of our ancestors, and many of us will be surprised
to learn how little humans have changed over the years...
The Ice Age world was, geologically, just a moment ago. Fascinating but today extinct giant animals, like mammoths,
mastodons and giant ground sloths, coexisted with early Americans in those days....
For millions of years, these animals survived, living in temperate climates and on the wind-swept lands of the frozen north – great
beasts weighing as much as eight tons and bearing tusks up to 16 feet long.
In the 30s of the twentieth century, a genuine, 900-year-old bone skull was discovered in an abandoned mine tunnel near Mexico's Copper Canyon.
It was very different and until now is a subject of scientific interest and debate regarding both the unusual shape and properties of the bone...
A Lichen Crab spider is harmless to humans but its look can be a little frightening.
The spider has a human face on its back!
Several very unusual sounds coming from the oceans have been recorded by scientists world-wide.
Are the sounds caused by very large life forms lurking in the unexplored darkness of Earth's deep oceans or perhaps something else?
Something is down there and experts do not know what it is...
Red blood cells have been discovered in Ötzi, the 5,000-year-old glacier mummy, found twenty years ago in the Ötzal Alps in South Tyrol.
It's the oldest blood known to modern science.
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