Crocodiles are known to be one of the most primitive reptiles still alive today, roaming for 200 million years. Historically, the crocodile family has been a top predator from ancient times to the present, such as the Prussian crocodile, the emperor crocodile, and the crocodile in ancient times. If you add the 23 existing crocodile species, it seems that crocodiles can only roam inland?
According to the research of scientists, in the early Jurassic Period, the competition for land species was fierce, and many reptiles had "gone to the sea to make a living", and the crocodile family had also tried to "go to the sea", and also gave birth to the ferocious underwater demon - the king Of Macimo crocodile. This name has a kind of self-evident domineering at first glance...
King Marchimo crocodile, belongs to the lower sea crocodile of the family Eucharidae, living from the late Jurassic to the early Cretaceous. From the current fossils, scientists speculate that the Macimo crocodile is about 9-10 meters long and weighs about 3 tons, making it the largest crocodile-shaped superorder known during the Jurassic period.
In fact, a large number of true lizard crocodile fossils have been excavated from the late Jurassic strata of Europe, one of which is named The Machimo Crocodile, the earliest Machimo Crocodile fossil was found in Switzerland in the 19th century, and later found in Britain, France, Germany and other countries.
In 2016, American researchers found a huge crocodile fossil in the African Sahara Desert, near Tunisia. With the help of National Geographic, the team excavated a total of 4 species of fossils, the largest of which was 31 feet (9.45 meters) long, weighed about 3 tons, and had a skull alone of 1.5 meters long.
According to the analysis, the crocodile lived about 130 million years ago, similar to today's crocodile, but the tail of the king Machimo crocodile is long and wide, and it should have adapted to marine life. From the remains of fish and turtles found nearby, this crocodile can be called a marine scavenger. At that time, sea turtles could feed on, which showed that the lethality of their bite force was very frightening. The researchers said: "It can be seen from its fossils that its teeth are used to crush hard objects. ”
In addition, the cetacean femur found in early Switzerland has tooth marks, and the tooth marks are consistent with the locally found Hershey Machimo crocodile, which indicates that the Macimo crocodile is not satisfied with eating only some fish and turtles. Moreover, fossil analysis revealed that the monarch Marchimo crocodile was not fully marine, and also had the ability to return to land life. Scientists have deduced that they would also be like today's crocodiles, lurking under the surface of the water on the shore and then sneaking up on dinosaurs.
Looking at the ocean at that time, in addition to the sea crocodile, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs also began to swim in the ocean (spinosaurs, sharktooth dragons, and emperor crocodiles have not yet appeared). From the Jurassic to the Cretaceous Period, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs were still alive and well, but all the marine crocodiles in the family True Lizard crocodile family were extinct. Although the King Machimo crocodile is the largest known marine crocodile, it is not the largest crocodile. The largest is a 40-foot-long (about 12.19 m) freshwater crocodile monarch crocodile.