Sarcosuchus

Sarcosuchus, from Ancient Greek σάρξ (sárx), meaning "flesh", and Σοῦχος (Soûkhos), meaning "Sobek", is a genus of crocodyliform that lived during the Early Cretaceous (Hauterivian to Albian ages, 133 to 101 million years ago) in North Africa and Brazil. The genus was first described in 1966 by French paleontologists Frances de Broin and Philippe Taquet on the basis of an incomplete skull that was discovered in Gadoufaoua, northern Niger. They named the type species S. imperator. Prior to 1966, fragmentary fossils of S. imperator had been found in French expeditions to the Sahara as well. In 1977, the species Crocodylus hartti, which had been discovered in Early Cretaceous deposits in Brazil in the 1850s-60s, was reassigned to Sarcosuchus. S. hartti is known from largely fragmentary material compared to S. imperator and is smaller in size. The best-preserved remains of Sarcosuchus were not unearthed until 1997 and 2000, when American paleontologist Paul Sereno and University of Chicago crews collected six new specimens, including several skulls and postcranial remains, of S. imperator. Sarcosuchus is a member of the extinct family Pholidosauridae, a clade of largely aquatic neosuchians distantly related to living crocodylians. S. imperator is one of the biggest crocodylomorphs known, with fully grown individuals estimated to have reached up to 9 to 9.5 m (29.5 to 31.2 ft) in total length and 3.45 to 4.3 metric tons (3.80 to 4.74 short tons) in weight. It had somewhat telescoped eyes and a long snout accounting for 75% of the length of the skull. The longest reported skull is 1.7 metres (5.6 ft) in length, while the longest confirmed skull is slightly shorter at 1.6 metres (5.2 ft) long. There were 35 teeth in each side of the upper jaw, while in the lower jaw there were 31 teeth in each side. The length of the upper jaw was also noticeably greater than that of the lower one, leaving a gap between them when the jaws were shut that created an overbite. In young individuals, the shape of the snout resembled that of the living gharial, but in fully grown individuals have much broader snouts. Sarcosuchus may have had a Nile crocodile-like lifestyle in which it hunted large, terrestrial prey. This could have included dinosaurs such as the ornithopod Ouranosaurus and the sauropod Nigersaurus. However, biomechanical analyses of Sarcosuchus fossils indicate that it was not capable of a crocodile-like "death roll". In the Early Cretaceous, North Africa and Brazil were blanketed in mangrove forests and wetlands, fostering a hotspot of dinosaur, fish, crocodyliform, and pterosaur diversity. Isotopic analyses of S. imperator bones suggest that it had a diet composed of both fish and large dinosaurs.

Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0