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The ancestor of the crocodile, the dragon plant

Source | Sina Weibo Author 丨 Charcoal grilled pig head

Phytosauria was a triassic aquatic mosaic of the main dragon, whose scientific name Phytosauria means "plant lizard", because the earliest discoverers thought they fed on plants, which of course is completely wrong, and now we know that all members of the plantosaurus are carnivores.

The ancestor of the crocodile, the dragon plant
The ancestor of the crocodile, the dragon plant

Paleorhinus

As hunters who mainly inhabit freshwater rivers and lakes, the appearance of the plantosaurus is extremely similar to that of later crocodiles, almost to the point where it is difficult to distinguish between true and false, but this is mainly the result of convergent evolution, and in terms of blood relations, plantosaurs are not particularly close to crocodile-shaped superorders.

The ancestor of the crocodile, the dragon plant
The ancestor of the crocodile, the dragon plant

Rutiodon

In fact, in the era when the plantosaurus was prosperous and dominated the freshwater waters of the Triassic Period, the real primitive crocodiles had not yet evolved into the shape we know today, and it was not so much that the plantosaur imitated the crocodile as that the crocodile copied the plant dragon.

The ancestor of the crocodile, the dragon plant
The ancestor of the crocodile, the dragon plant

Chisel crocodile (Smilosuchus)

Like later crocodiles, plantosaurs came in a variety of different types, ranging from professional fishermen with slender snouts and small, dense teeth, similar to ganga crocodiles, to species with thick jaws and large, strong teeth that could sneak up on Triassic land animals that came to drink water by the river like today's Nile crocodile ambush zebra antelope, such as diplodonts, lizards, early dinosaurs, and even the land overlord Lloyd's crocodiles may sometimes fall prey to some large plant dragons larger than modern bay crocodiles.

The ancestor of the crocodile, the dragon plant
The ancestor of the crocodile, the dragon plant
The ancestor of the crocodile, the dragon plant

Redondasaurus

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