Imagine you’re walking through a damp and foggy swamp. Suddenly, through the hanging branches of an old oak tree, notice 2 yellow, gleaming eyes. On closer inspection, you realize that the eyes are connected to a tail more than 30 ft. away silently slicing through the water. That is SuperCroc, a massive aquatic reptile that lived more than 110 million years ago and was rumored to eat dinosaurs. First majorly discovered by American paleontologist, Paul Sereno, this cold blooded beast was stumping croc experts for months. SuperCroc was a spectacular crocodile from the ancient past that awed paleontologist for its gigantic size and crazy appetite for large animals.
It took many years, and a lot of hard work to unearth SuperCroc and its mysteries. In 1945, a French paleontologist named Albert-Félix de Lapparent went searching for fossils, but after only finding a few teeth and scutes, he gave up. 55 years later, an American fossil finder, Paul Sereno, and his team traveled to Gadoufaoua, Niger to start up where Lapparent left off. This time though, Sereno got lucky, finding half a dozen new specimens and a 6 foot long skull. After some examining, they realized that the skull was probably attached to a crocodile living more than 110 million years ago. This croc was called Sarcosuchus Imperator, by …show more content…
Sereno found Sarcosuchus fossils in the Sahara desert, but after some environmental tests, he realized that when the croc was alive, this now hot and dry desert was actually a lush, green forest with great, winding rivers. Dinosaurs would eat plump, green leaves and large fish would swim in the crystal clear water. Because of its size, SuperCroc ate about anything it wanted, ranging from 5 foot fish to small dinosaurs. Like modern crocs today, SuperCroc would stalk its prey underwater before grabbing it with its 130 razor sharp teeth and dragging it down into the river to