New Species Of 150 Million-Year-Old Crocodile Identified

Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com – A newly identified species of 150 million-year-old marine crocodile has given insights into how a group of ancient animals evolved.

Life reconstruction of Cricosaurus by Joschua Knüppe.

Remarkably well-preserved fossil of the species, Cricosaurus bambergensis, was discovered in 2014 in a quarry near the town of Bamberg in Bavaria. Researchers created digital images of this in high resolution, which showed that the creature belonged to a group of animals that developed a tail fin and paddle-like limbs for life in the sea, resembling dolphins more than crocodiles.

These slender animals, which fed on fast-moving prey such as squid and small fish, lived during the Jurassic era in shallow seas and lagoons in what is now Germany. Related species have previously been found in Mexico and Argentina, according to source.

Articulated tail fluke of Cricosaurus bambergensis. source

The skeleton has several distinguishing features in its jaws, the roof of its mouth and tail, some of which have not been seen in any other species.

Researchers believe the fossil will aid greater understanding of a wider family of ancient animals, known as metriorhynchid, to which this species belonged.

“The rock formations of southern Germany continue to give us fresh insights into the age of dinosaurs,” said Dr Mark Young, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, who took part in the study.

“These rock layers were deposited at a time when Europe was covered by a shallow sea, with countries such as Germany and the UK being a collection of islands.”

“The study reveals peculiar features at the palate that have not been described in any fossil crocodile so far. There are two depressions which are separated by a pronounced bar. It is not clear what these depressions were good for,” according to Sven Sachs, from the Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld, who led the project

The research is published in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

Written by Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com Staff Writer