Post by rock on Jun 19, 2019 0:48:46 GMT 5
sarcosuchus imperator
sarcosuchus (meaning “flesh crocodile”) is a genus of crocodyliform and distant relative of living crocodylians that lived 112 million years ago. It dates from the early Cretaceous Period of what is now Africa and South America and is one of the largest crocodile-like reptiles that ever lived. It was almost twice as long as the modern saltwater crocodile and weighed up to 8 tonnes.
The name Sarcosuchus is Greek for “flesh crocodile,” but that apparently wasn’t impressive enough for the producers at National Geographic. In 2001, this cable channel bestowed the title “SuperCroc” on its hour-long documentary about Sarcosuchus, a name that has since stuck in the popular imagination. (By the way, there are other “-crocs” in the prehistoric bestiary, none of which are quite as popular as SuperCroc: for example, have you ever heard of the BoarCroc or the DuckCroc?)
Unlike modern crocodiles, which attain their full adult size in about ten years, Sarcosuchus seems to hve kept growing and growing at a steady rate throughout its lifetime (paleontologists can determine this by examining bone cross-sections from various fossilized specimens). As a result, the largest, most superannuated SuperCrocs reached lengths of up to 40 feet from head to tail, compared to about 25 feet max for the biggest croc alive today, the Saltwater Crocodile.
What made Sarcosuchus truly impressive was its dinosaur-worthy weight: more than ten tons for those 40-foot-long senior citizens described in the previous slide, and perhaps seven or eight tons for the average adult. If the SuperCroc had lived after the dinosaurs had gone extinct, rather than right alongside them during the middle Cretaceous period (about 100 million years ago), it would have counted as one of the largest land-dwelling animals on the face of the earth!
European Hippopotamus - Hippopotamus antiquus
Hippopotamus antiquus, sometimes called the European hippopotamus, was a species of hippopotamus that ranged across Europe, becoming extinct some time before the last ice age at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. H. antiquus ranged from the Iberian Peninsula to the British Isles to the Rhine River to Greece. Similar in size and form to Hippopotamus gorgops, H. antiquus on average was larger than the modern common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius). H. antiquus is believed to have first appeared around 1.8 million years ago, compared to 2 million years ago for H. amphibius. Beginning in the Middle Pleistocene, H. amphibius migrated into Europe and may have competed with this hippopotamus species for food. The Cretan Dwarf Hippopotamus (H. creutzburgi) is believed to have evolved from H. antiquus through the process of insular dwarfism on the island of Crete. Martínez-Navarro et al. (2004) estimated a body mass for H. antiquus between 2.500-4000 Kg, which is more than two times heavier than the mean weight of its extant relative.
sarcosuchus (meaning “flesh crocodile”) is a genus of crocodyliform and distant relative of living crocodylians that lived 112 million years ago. It dates from the early Cretaceous Period of what is now Africa and South America and is one of the largest crocodile-like reptiles that ever lived. It was almost twice as long as the modern saltwater crocodile and weighed up to 8 tonnes.
The name Sarcosuchus is Greek for “flesh crocodile,” but that apparently wasn’t impressive enough for the producers at National Geographic. In 2001, this cable channel bestowed the title “SuperCroc” on its hour-long documentary about Sarcosuchus, a name that has since stuck in the popular imagination. (By the way, there are other “-crocs” in the prehistoric bestiary, none of which are quite as popular as SuperCroc: for example, have you ever heard of the BoarCroc or the DuckCroc?)
Unlike modern crocodiles, which attain their full adult size in about ten years, Sarcosuchus seems to hve kept growing and growing at a steady rate throughout its lifetime (paleontologists can determine this by examining bone cross-sections from various fossilized specimens). As a result, the largest, most superannuated SuperCrocs reached lengths of up to 40 feet from head to tail, compared to about 25 feet max for the biggest croc alive today, the Saltwater Crocodile.
What made Sarcosuchus truly impressive was its dinosaur-worthy weight: more than ten tons for those 40-foot-long senior citizens described in the previous slide, and perhaps seven or eight tons for the average adult. If the SuperCroc had lived after the dinosaurs had gone extinct, rather than right alongside them during the middle Cretaceous period (about 100 million years ago), it would have counted as one of the largest land-dwelling animals on the face of the earth!
European Hippopotamus - Hippopotamus antiquus
Hippopotamus antiquus, sometimes called the European hippopotamus, was a species of hippopotamus that ranged across Europe, becoming extinct some time before the last ice age at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. H. antiquus ranged from the Iberian Peninsula to the British Isles to the Rhine River to Greece. Similar in size and form to Hippopotamus gorgops, H. antiquus on average was larger than the modern common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius). H. antiquus is believed to have first appeared around 1.8 million years ago, compared to 2 million years ago for H. amphibius. Beginning in the Middle Pleistocene, H. amphibius migrated into Europe and may have competed with this hippopotamus species for food. The Cretan Dwarf Hippopotamus (H. creutzburgi) is believed to have evolved from H. antiquus through the process of insular dwarfism on the island of Crete. Martínez-Navarro et al. (2004) estimated a body mass for H. antiquus between 2.500-4000 Kg, which is more than two times heavier than the mean weight of its extant relative.