Prehistoric Crocodiles

[epaiva]

Sarcosuchus imperator: is an extinct 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.A common method to estimate the size of crocodiles and crocodile-like reptiles is the use of the length of the skull measured in the midline from the tip of the snout to the back of the skull table, since in living crocodilians there is a strong correlation between skull length and total body length in subadult and adult individuals irrespective of their sex, this method is preferred for Sarcosuchus due to the absence of a complete enough skeleton.

Two regression equations were used to estimate the size of S. imperator, they were created based on measurements gathered from 17 captive gharial individuals from northern India and from 28 wild saltwater crocodile individuals from northern Australia, both datasets supplemented by available measurements of individuals over 1.5 m (4.9 ft) in length found in the literature.The largest known skull of S. imperator (the type specimen) is 1.6 m (5.2 ft) long, and it was estimated that the individual it belonged to had a total body length of 11.65 m (38.2 ft), its snout-vent length of 5.7 m (19 ft) was estimated using linear equations for the saltwater crocodile and in turn this measurement was used to estimate its body weight at 8 tonnes (8.8 short tons). This shows that Sarcosuchus was able to reach a maximum body size not only greater than previously estimated but also greater than that of the Miocene Rhamphosuchus, only the Late Cretaceous Deinosuchus and the Miocene Purussaurus may have achieved a comparable maximum body size.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

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