Earlier this week, I told you all about the discovery of the skeletal remains of a megaraptor that died while it was in the middle of munching on the ancient ancestor of the modern crocodile. Well, it seems the tables have turned.
A different team of researchers found evidence of a gigantic ancient crocodile that ate dinosaurs. These things went extinct just as their ugly war was escalating. I’m beginning to think one of them summoned the asteroid that wiped them all out.
In the waning days of the Cretaceous period, a hypercarnivorous crocodile that could shred dinosaurs to bits with its chef’s knife-like teeth roamed the mean streets of modern-day Patagonia.
Scientists have recently unearthed a remarkably well-preserved ancient apex predator, known as Kostensuchus atrox, a fossil find so complete that it was practically ready for display in a museum.
This Newly Discovered Crocodile Used to Feast on Dinosaurs
Discovered in Argentina’s Chorrillo Formation in 2020, just before COVID struck, the 11 ½ foot, 555-pound K. atrox belonged to a now extinct family of land-dwelling crocodyliforms called peirosaurids. They were extremely distant cousins of today’s alligators and crocodiles.
A big difference is that they had a limb that suggests they walked, looking more like modern-day Komodo dragons than modern-day gators or crocs, whose bellies are constantly dragging on the ground.
And walked they did, headlong into herbivorous dinosaurs, whom they would devour with their two-inch serrated teeth. Its skull was compact, broad, and reinforced with muscle anchor points that let it crush prey like a living bear trap. This thing was gnarly. They were like the lions of the Cretaceous period.
These ancient crocs were never thought to live as far down as the southern tip of South America, but that’s precisely where they were found. It lived in lush, temperate environments that are now frozen under Antarctic winds.
Unfortunately for its own sake of survival, the K. atrox was a hypercarnivore, which means its diet consisted of at least 70 percent meat. The remaining 30 percent of their diets was made up of fruits, fungi, and various other plant materials.
A good modern-day equivalent would be eagles, snakes, spiders, polar bears, and even marlins. There’s a bunch. However, it was the heavy reliance on meat that ultimately led to its downfall.
Once the asteroid hit, a lot of its food source was wiped out. Herbivores, on the other hand, had enough plant life lingering around to sustain them for the generations to come. The ones that did survive likely did so because they adapted to living in and around freshwater.
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