Three-Story Tall Crocodiles Once Swallowed Human Beings
39 replies, posted
[quote]
The largest known true crocodile, measuring over 27 feet in length, lived 2-4 million years ago.
The crocodile was at the top of the food chain and would have preyed upon our human ancestors.
Remains of early australopithecines and other hominids were found near the crocodile.
The largest known crocodile was big enough to swallow a human being and likely terrorized our ancestors two to four million years ago.
Remains of the enormous horned croc, named Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni, were unearthed in East Africa. The impressive aquatic reptile exceeded 27 feet long and is described in the latest Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The croc was the dominant predator of its ecosystem, so there is little doubt that it preyed upon our distant ancestors, especially since remains of Australopithecus (a now-extinct genus of hominids) were found nearby.
These relatively tiny individuals would have had no choice but to enter the crocodile's territory for much needed water.
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"Humans might have eaten food along a lakeside or riverbank, but more importantly, they would have needed water to drink," lead author Christopher Brochu told Discovery News. "This would have brought them right to where the crocodiles might have been living."
"Crocodiles today like to creep up on animals at the water's edge and grab them before the crocodile is detected," added Brochu, an associate professor of geoscience at the University of Iowa.
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He and colleague Glenn Storrs, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Cincinnati Museum Center, recognized the new species from fossils stored at the National Museum of Kenya in Nairobi. The human remains also found nearby show that our ancestors then only stood about 4 feet tall, so the crocodile could have easily swallowed one whole.
The animal looked similar to a modern Nile crocodile, except with a large snout and a pair of horn-like protuberances behind its eyes.
Storrs also said the croc had a "powerful tail that propelled the animal forward in a desperate 'all or nothing' lunge."
Given the anatomical similarities to today's Nile crocs, Brochu said this prehistoric species would have had a "lifestyle that was probably similar to that of their living counterparts -- semi-aquatic ambush predators that would stealthily approach prey. Anything in the shallow water or close to the waterline would have been in range."
Even in its present de-fleshed state, the crocodile is something to behold. It requires four men just to lift the animal's skull. The species was named after famed crocodile expert John Thorbjarnarson, who worked with Brochu before contracting malaria in the field and dying from the disease.
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Brochu and his colleagues previously discovered another man-eating horned crocodile from Tanzania named Crocodylus anthropophagus. This animal was related to C. thorbjarnarsoni, with both distantly but not directly related to today's Nile crocodile.
Evon Hekkala, a crocodile expert who is an assistant professor of biological sciences at Fordham University, told Discovery News that she agrees with the new findings.
The discoveries remind that our human relatives often functioned as prey as well as predators.
In addition to probably being worried about crocodile attacks, these individuals "would have needed to be equally as wary of large carnivorous mammals, such as lion-like felids," Storrs said.
Kenya was a hot spot for early human evolution. Aside from the australopithecine hominids, Storrs said several early species of homo sapiens are known from fossils that are contemporaneous to those of the big and mighty new crocodile.[/quote]
[url]http://news.discovery.com/animals/ancient-crocs-120508.html[/url]
Thank god its fucking gone
why is it such a big deal it could swallow a human whole? Isn't that pretty clear anyway with it being [B]27 fucking foot long[/B]. Most animals would try to kill us if they had a chance anyway. We are well aware we aren't exactly the best animal in the food chain for straight up killing without some sort of tool
Misleading title, it says it ate our ancestors a few million years ago.
I was expecting neolithic farmers being eaten.
But modern crocodiles have no problem killing and eating humans either.
misleading title, i started thinking of a gargantuan crocodile that was about 30 feet high and evenly distributed in proportion :c
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;36002630]Misleading title, it says it ate our ancestors a few million years ago.
I was expecting neolithic farmers being eaten.[/QUOTE]
We need someone to draw this. [B]NOW.[/B]
Yeah well a good spear through the eye will stop it dead.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;36004061][img]http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120228022652/peterpan/images/a/a8/Hook_the_film_crocodile_clock_tower_in_the_movie.JPG[/img]
Mandatory reference[/QUOTE]
fuck I love that film
It's hard to think how these things lived being that big but its awesome.
For reference, here is a 21 foot croc
[img]http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/399/cache/giant-saltwater-crocodile-found-philippines-cart_39952_600x450.jpg[/img]
I find it incredibly hard to imagine something that big.
Didn't they find a skull of a crocodile that proportionally would be like 11-12m long?
Around eight meters long? That's actually pretty similar to the length of an australian saltwater crocodile (Maximum of more or less 7 meters/23 feet). Still pretty impressive, though
[editline]18th May 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Kendra;36006622]Didn't they find a skull of a crocodile that proportionally would be like 11-12m long?[/QUOTE]
Probably Deinosuchus or Sarcosuchus, all of those aren't true crocodiles and are Mesozoic-restricted taxa, so they're all long extinct
[QUOTE=Jorori;36006776]Around eight meters long? That's actually pretty similar to the length of an australian saltwater crocodile (Maximum of more or less 7 meters/23 feet). Still pretty impressive, though
[editline]18th May 2012[/editline]
Probably Deinosuchus or Sarcosuchus, all of those aren't true crocodiles and are Mesozoic-restricted taxa, so they're all long extinct[/QUOTE]
Nope, I'm talking of a proper croc.
[editline]18th May 2012[/editline]
[url]http://glewonews.com/2011/11/13/ancient-crocodile-from-morocco-throughout-the-11-meter/[/url]
Misleading thread title, it's probably max 50cm tall, but three stories long.
[QUOTE=Kendra;36006823]Nope, I'm talking of a proper croc.
[editline]18th May 2012[/editline]
[url]http://glewonews.com/2011/11/13/ancient-crocodile-from-morocco-throughout-the-11-meter/[/url][/QUOTE]
That's a Stomatosuchus, and he's not an actual croc, it's just a cousin.
He also was most likely a filter feeder like whales :v:
[QUOTE=TonyP;36004959]For reference, here is a 21 foot croc
[img]http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/399/cache/giant-saltwater-crocodile-found-philippines-cart_39952_600x450.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
Doesn't seem that big to have to have 4 men carrying its skull.
It wouldn't have to be thirty feet long to eat a human, crocodiles today don't have much of an issue with prey of considerably greater size than us.
[QUOTE=TonyP;36004959]For reference, here is a 21 foot croc
[img]http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/399/cache/giant-saltwater-crocodile-found-philippines-cart_39952_600x450.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
I bet the only way to get that on a cart was to kill it. Nobody could wrangle with crocodile that big.
It isn't surprising that reptiles were huge at that time, just look at Titanoboa.
[QUOTE=Blazyd;36007314]I bet the only way to get that on a cart was to kill it. Nobody could wrangle with crocodile that big.[/QUOTE]
Maybe if you had a set of Steve Irwin twins, maybe. Any other croc wrangler? Impossible.
rrerr
[QUOTE=TAU!;36009035]It isn't surprising that reptiles were huge at that time, just look at Titanoboa.
Maybe if you had a set of Steve Irwin twins, maybe. Any other croc wrangler? Impossible.[/QUOTE]
Titanoboa lived a long time before this croc, pretty sure there were ones rivaling this size at that time near Titanoboa though
Thread title made it sounds like it was 3 stories tall on all fours.
[IMG]http://i50.tinypic.com/35lzorb.jpg[/IMG]
I was so disappointed.
[QUOTE=ChristopherB;36009854]
I was so disappointed.[/QUOTE]
Pretty much every thread title involving size, scope, scale, or effect is so terribly written that this sort of thing is unavoidable. I'm not gonna lie, I was really expecting and hoping for a thirty foot tall skull being unearthed.
[QUOTE=ChristopherB;36009854][IMG]http://i50.tinypic.com/35lzorb.jpg[/IMG]
I was so disappointed.[/QUOTE]
I actually thought it meant the same thing. This was a failure; I'm making a note here, huge disappointment.
Honestly I was expecting something along the lines of this for some odd reason:
[IMG]http://i50.tinypic.com/r1a26v.png[/IMG]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp_zMbQhFc4[/media]
First thing I thought of(Around 2:06)
No pictures? Damn...
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