Futurity.org » PancakeCroc http://www.futurity.org Research news from leading universities Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:03:39 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 BEST OF 2009: Bizarre band of paleo-crocs http://www.futurity.org/best-of-2009/bizarre-band-of-paleo-crocs-unearthed/ http://www.futurity.org/best-of-2009/bizarre-band-of-paleo-crocs-unearthed/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:08:15 +0000 Barbara Moffet-U. Chicago http://futurity.org/?p=5899

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Paleontologists Paul Sereno and Hans Larsson excavate the fossil skull of a 100-million-year-old croc in Niger. The animal, which they nicknamed BoarCroc, was one of several crocs that inhabited a lost world now buried in the sands of the Sahara. (Credit: Mike Hettwer/National Geographic)

U. CHICAGO (US)/MCGILL (CANADA)—A suite of five ancient crocs, including one with teeth-like boar tusks and another with a snout like a duck’s bill, have been discovered in the Sahara.

The five fossil crocs, three of them newly named species, are remains of a bizarre world of crocs that inhabited the southern land mass known as Gondwana some 100 million years ago.

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