Archives of The Cold Blooded News

The Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological Society

Volume 29, Number 4;   April, 2002

Fossil Leads To Discovery Of A Tiny Crocodile

by Margaret Munro

"One of my students was walking along at the end of the day and saw it poking out of the ground," said Professor Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, who was showing off the fossilized head of the little beast at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science yesterday. The skull fit neatly into the palm of his hand.

The 110-million-year-old crocodile has not yet been given a scientific name, but Prof. Sereno and his colleagues have dubbed it the "duck-crocodile" because of its small size and wide, upper jaw that resembles a beak. He said the crocodile also had an odd tooth pattern, which would have left a big gap between its front teeth. The creatures would have had a bit of a "David Letterman look," he said, referring to the toothy talk-show host.

Prof. Sereno suspects the crocodile, which measured two feet from snout to tail, dined on insects, frogs and tadpoles. And it lived in a world teeming with a great variety of crocodiles, including giant "supercrocs" that were more than 12 metres long. Prof. Sereno's team unveiled the supercroc last fall.

Both of the creatures were discovered in rich fossil beds they have been mining in a remote desert in Niger. They have found a menagerie of new creatures ranging from the dwarf crocodiles to fierce clawed dinosaurs, one sporting almost 1,000 teeth. They also uncovered a bed of giant long-necked plant-eaters in a communal death site.

"Africa is the last great continental frontier," said Prof. Sereno, noting that until now very few complete specimens had been found on the continent. "It's a gold mine." He says the new finds are filling in huge gaps in understanding of reptile and dinosaur evolution.

"It makes evolution seem less omnipotent than we thought," he said. They also suggest that the super-continent, which existed when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, may have broken up much later than previously believed.

"Africa and South America may have remained connected by a land bridge until 90 million years ago," says Prof. Sereno. This is because dinosaurs bones they have recently found in South America are clearly related to some of the creatures now turning up in the African fossil beds. There had to have been a connection between the landmasses, which creatures could roam along, he said.

Prof. Sereno also hopes the fossils from Africa will help explain why there were no burrowing or climbing dinosaurs.

http://www.nationalpost.com/tech/story.html?f=/stories/20020219/98426.html