The legendary crocodile can kill the Tyrannosaurus rex???
This is a well-known restoration of the paleontology, written by the great god Raul Martin, which includes the famous Crocodile (Deinosuchus) and "Tyrannosaurus". It is precisely because of the wide circulation of this reconstructed map that it gives people the illusion that crocodiles can kill Tyrannosaurus rex!
The crocodile was a very large prehistoric crocodile that was related to today's American alligator, but lived much older. The crocodile lived between 82 million and 73 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period and was found on both sides of the Western Inland Sea, so its fossils were found in the badlands of the central United States, including Montana, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, New Jersey, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and North Carolina. There is also a record of crocodile fossils in northern Mexico, expanding the range of crocodiles.
Image note: American alligator, picture from the internet
Image note: The distribution of crocodiles in the past, the picture comes from the internet
The crocodile was very large, its limit length was first estimated to be 15 meters, weighing 10 tons, when it was estimated that the skull of the crocodile was 1.5 meters long and the jaw was 1.8 meters long. The latest research shows that most crocodiles have a skull length of 1 meter, a body length of 8 meters, and a weight of 2.3 tons. The largest alligator fossil comes from a fragmented specimen whose skull is equivalent to 1.5 times the length of the average individual, which is estimated to be 12 meters long and weighs 8.5 tons!
Many people do not believe this 12-meter individual specimen, in addition to the largest crocodile specimen is the crocodile with a 1.47-meter (still fragmented) skull, which is estimated to be 10.6 meters long and weighs 3 tons, and this individual is currently recognized as the limit length of the crocodile, which is more than 100 years old.
Illustration: Comparison of the size of the extremely large individual crocodile with that of humans, the picture comes from the network
How is it possible for a crocodile hunter with an average body length of 8 meters and a body length of more than 12 meters and a weight of nearly 10 tons? It's like a Nile crocodile single-handedly picking out a hippopotamus that is much bigger than itself! Is this equivalent to suicide? Since it could not kill T. rex, the crocodile could kill the Tyrannosaurus rex's little relative, that is, Appalachiosaurus, a tyrannosaurus that lived before the Tyrannosaurus rex, which was 7 meters long and weighed 600 kg, and the bite marks of the crocodile were found on its fossils (Figure 6).
Illustration: Tyrannosaurus rex compared to human body size, picture from the network
Image note: The crocodile attacks the Appalachian dragon, picture from the internet
In addition to Appalachian dragons, crocodiles were also able to prey on other dinosaurs of their time, lurking on the shore and attacking dinosaurs that let their guard down, such as parachlorosaurus, diplodocus, etc., or smaller dinosaurs. For large dinosaurs, the tactics of the crocodile were similar to today's crocodiles, biting the prey and dragging it into the water, then unleashing a terrifying death roll!
Picture note: The crocodile prepares to attack the parachute dragon, the picture comes from the network
Image note: The crocodile attacks the short-crowned dragon, the picture comes from the network
In fact, crocodiles not only prey on terrestrial animals, because they are widely distributed along the western inland waterways, but also often enter the shallow sea to eat seafood, paleontologists have found that many turtle fossils have crocodile bite marks, and they can even compete with small dragons for dominance in the shallow sea.
73 million years ago, crocodiles were basically extinct, because the western inland waterways disappeared due to the disappearance of the living environment, and Tyrannosaurus rex had not yet evolved! Tyrannosaurus rex did not appear until 68 million years ago, so it did not meet crocodiles. The largest crocodile that lived in the same environment as Tyrannosaurus rex was the Thoracosaurus , which was only 4.4 meters long and was a pointed-headed fish-eating crocodile.
Caption: Breastplate crocodile living with Tyrannosaurus rex, picture from the Internet
Therefore, the "Tyrannosaurus Rex" in the inscription is not a Tyrannosaurus rex, but a much smaller Appalachian dragon.
Resources:
1.Adam P. Cossette; Christopher A. Brochu (2020). "A systematic review of the giant alligatoroid Deinosuchus from the Campanian of North America and its implications for the relationships at the root of Crocodylia". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 40: e1767638. doi:10.1080/02724634.2020.1767638.
2.Schwimmer, David R. (2002). "The Life and Times of a Giant Crocodylian". King of the Crocodylians: The Paleobiology of Deinosuchus. Indiana University Press. pp. 1–16. ISBN 978-0-253-34087-0.
3.Schwimmer, David R. (2002). "How Many Deinosuchus Species Existed?". King of the Crocodylians: The Paleobiology of Deinosuchus. Indiana University Press.
Text: Jiang's Little Thief Dragon
Image: From the Internet, invasion and deletion
Typography: Jiang's Little Thief Dragon