Name: Sarcosuchus
(Flesh crocodile).
Phonetic: Sar-ko-su-kus.
Named By: France de Broin & Phillipe
Taquet 1966.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Diapsida,
Archosauromorpha, Mesoeucrocodylia, Pholidosauridae.
Species: S. imperator (type),
S. hartti.
Type: Carnivore/Piscivore?.
Size: Often credited with being over 11 meters, more
modern estimates roughly suggest a size of about 9 to 9.5 meters long.
Known locations: Algeria - Continental Intercalaire
Formation. Brazil - Ilhas Group. Mali - Continental Intercalaire
Formation. Morocco - Aoufous Formation, Ifezouane Formation. Niger -
Elrhaz Formation, Tagrezou Sandstone Formation. Tunisia - A�n El
Guettar Formation, Continental Intercalaire Formation.
Time period: Hauterivian to Albian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Mainly specimens are known,
especially teeth and skulls. Parts of post cranial skeleton were
discovered at the end of the twentieth century.
A
very large prehistoric crocodile
Sarcosuchus was initially only known from teeth and
osteoderms. In 1964 the
first skull was discovered and the type species could then be
established. However it was not until the closing years of the
twentieth century that more complete
material including vertebra, ribs and other parts of the post cranial
skeleton. Although still not complete, there is now enough material
to
give a rough estimate on the potential size of Sarcosuchus.
Towards
the end of the twentieth century Sarcosuchus was
thought to have been
around eleven to twelve meters long, an estimate based upon
comparison of the skull to body length proportions of crocodiles alive
today. This method was also used for many other genera of prehistoric
crocodiles, however it also doesn’t seem to have been entirely
reliable in some cases, especially given the variance in skull shapes
and sizes amongst crocodilians. Later twenty-first century studies
(O’Brian et al 2019) using differing comparison methods have a
yielded a slightly smaller estimate of nine to nine and a half meters
for known Sarcosuchus individuals. This still
makes Sarcosuchus
significantly larger than the largest recorded crocodiles alive today
which only rarely attain lengths of six to seven meters.
Sarcosuchus
was not just bigger than today’s crocodiles it was also a lot older.
Most crocodiles have an average lifespan in the wild of around
twenty-five years, with some individuals reaching thirty or more.
Study on the growth rings present on some of the osteoderms show that
Sarcosuchus was around forty years old and yet not
fully
grown when it
died. Whereas todays crocodiles grow large and then stop when they
reach adulthood, Sarcosuchus just kept getting
bigger. It could be
that the only limiting factor to how big it grew was when it could no
longer sustain such a massive body with the available food supply.
As
such a massive predator Sarcosuchus would have had
to of focused its
attention on hunting animals that could provide enough sustenance to
keep its body going, and the two main animal groups available to it
were the dinosaurs and large lobe finned fish. While the idea of
Sarcosuchus shooting out of the water to drag a
hadrosaur off the
shoreline is a tantalising one, you need to look at the teeth and
jaws of Sarcosuchus for clues.
Deinosuchus
had broad jaws and strong teeth, perfect for dealing with large and
powerful prey that would have been struggling as it dragged it into the
water. The jaws of Sarcosuchus however had
proportionately longer and
thinner jaws with relatively small teeth, more suited to a fish
diet. It was not until Sarcosuchus grew bigger
and older that the
jaws began to widen. The tip of the upper jaw also hooked downwards,
another adaption seen in other fish eating crocodiles.
Predatory
dinosaurs of the time and locations include Spinosaurus
and
Suchomimus.
Both dinosaurs have long thin snouts
akin to some
crocodiles and their teeth are many, sharp and pointed. This has
led to most palaeontologists speculating that they were fish hunters,
and if true then there must have been a plentiful supply of fish of
such size and sustenance to keep their numbers and massive bodies
going. A large
crocodile of similar size but less active lifestyle and possibly slower
metabolism would have been even more suited to surviving upon a fish
diet than these dinosaurs.
It
may of course be that Sarcosuchus had different
lifestyles and diets at
different stages of its life. Fish are easy prey for small crocodiles
but as they grew larger they would need more sustenance to survive and
so they may have begun to incorporate dinosaurs into their diets as
well. As seen in crocodiles today, they may have also left the
water to scavenge the kills of the larger dinosaurs as well.
Name | Time/Location | Size (meters) |
Deinosuchus (alligator-like crocodile). | Cretaceous/USA. | 10-12 |
Gryposuchus (gharial-like crocodile). | Miocene/S. America. | 10 |
Mourasuchus (alligator-like crocodile). | Miocene/Peru. | 12 |
Purussaurus (caiman-like crocodile). | Miocene/S. America. | 11-13 |
Rhamphosuchus (gharial-like crocodile). | Miocene/India. | 8-11 |
Sarcosuchus (crocodile). | Cretaceous/Africa. | 9-9.5 |
Stomatosuchus (crocodile). | Cretaceous/Egypt. | 10 |
3 of todays largest living crocs below | ||
Alligator mississippiensis (American alligator). | Present/S. E. USA. | 3.4 average - up to almost 6. |
Crocodylus niloticus (Nile crocodile). | Present/Africa. | Average up to 5, largest up to 6.45. |
Crocodylus porosus (Salt water crocodile). | Present/India, S. E. Asia, N. Australia. | Average 4-5.5, largest recorded 6-6.6, possibly slightly bigger. |
Further reading
- Notice of some new reptilian remains from the Cretaceous of Brazil.
American Journal of Sciences and Arts 47:442-444. - O. C. Marsh - 1869.
- D�couverte d'un Crocodilien nouveau dans le Cr�tac� inf�rieur du
Sahara [Discovery of a new crocodilian in the Lower Cretaceous of the
Sahara]. - Comptes Rendus de l'Acad�mie des Sciences � Paris, S�rie D
262:2326-2329. - F. de Broin and P. Taquet - 1966.
- The Giant Crocodilian Sarcosuchus in the Early
Cretaceous of Brazil
and Niger. - Palaeontology. 20 (1). - E. Buffetaut & P. Taquet
- 1977.
- The Giant Crocodyliform Sarcosuchus from the
Cretaceous of Africa. -
Science. 294 (5546): 1516–9. - Paul C. Sereno, Hans C. E. Larson,
Christian A. Sidor & Boub� Gado - 2001.
- The 'death roll' of giant fossil crocodyliforms (Crocodylomorpha:
Neosuchia): Allometric and skull strength analysis. - Historical
Biology. 27 (5): 514–524. - R. E. Blanco, W. W. Jones & J. N.
Villamil - 2014.
- New fossils of the giant pholidosaurid genus Sarcosuchus
from the
Early Cretaceous of Tunisia. - Journal of African Earth Sciences. 147:
268–280. - Jihed Dridi - 2018.
- Crocodylian Head Width Allometry and Phylogenetic Prediction of Body
Size in Extinct Crocodyliforms. - Integrative Organismal Biology. 1
(1). - Haley D O’Brien, Leigha M Lynch, Kent A Vliet, John Brueggen,
Gregory M Erickson & Paul M Gignac - 2019.
- Systematic revision of Sarcosuchus hartti
(Crocodyliformes) from the
Rec�ncavo Basin (Early Cretaceous) of Bahia, north-eastern Brazil. -
Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society: zlz057. - Rafael G. Souza,
Rodrigo G. Figueiredo, S�rgio A. K. Azevedo, Douglas Riff &
Alexander W. A. Kellner - 2019.
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