Crocodiles are animals, and the label of toughness is not to be said, but to say that it is a hegemon on the earth, it always feels that something is missing. Forest tigers and grassland lions, sharks and killer whales in the sea, these positions that can be immediately thought of as soon as they are mentioned, it seems that there is no crocodile's share.
But crocodiles have lived on Earth for more than two hundred million years, which is a creature that has survived the dinosaurs, and after such a long time, it has maintained such a strong fighting force, and their ancestral strength will certainly not be too weak. So what kind of ecological niche have crocodiles been in in the past two hundred million years?
<h1>From the Triassic to the Cretaceous, crocodiles were attempted to dominate the Earth</h1>
The earliest crocodiles appeared in the Triassic Period, when the birth of dinosaurs was the era, the crocodiles also rose in a strong posture, and a number of pseudo-crocodiles appeared, such as the swift crocodile, the tearing frog crocodile, the Lawrset crocodile, the Fassola crocodile and other large and fierce crocodiles, once able to claw and tear dinosaurs. At this time, crocodiles are the real overlords of the earth, there are nearly a hundred species of crocodiles, they can not only run on land, but also ambush underwater. At this time, the dinosaurs were far from competing for the supremacy of the crocodile.
Lloyd's crocodile
But soon by the end of the Triassic mass extinction, pseudo-crocodiles suffered a widespread extinction, leaving only beaked crocodiles similar in size to dogs. Meanwhile, during the Jurassic era, dinosaurs rose rapidly to suppress the development of crocodiles with overwhelming victories.
However, crocodiles did not give up hope of dominating the earth, and then the beaked crocodile evolved into a crocodile-shaped superorder again, which was very prosperous. In the Jurassic era, almost all crocodiles were dexterous land animals, but they could not fight dinosaurs on land, so one offspring began to develop into the ocean, known as "sea crocodiles".
At that time, the ocean was in a state of competition, and the finned dragons, ichthyosaurs, and sharks were fighting in the ocean at that time, so the sea crocodiles could only choose near the mouth of the freshwater river, ready to return to freshwater at any time. Food is also based on bite force to prey on turtles that most marine life can't bite, or raid animals that drink water at the water's edge, and this way of predation has not changed until now.
Because it has never really entered the ocean, so the sea crocodile has never really evolved into a marine life, in the early Cretaceous Period, evolved the largest sea crocodile in history "King Maqimo crocodile", with its excellent bite force and super thick skin, in the sea to hit their own field, but eventually to extinction.
Ground lizard crocodiles
One of them, the "ground lizard crocodile", really entered the ocean, evolved a fish-like body, and spread its territory at the largest time on the west coast of the continent that was not separated at that time, becoming the hegemon of one side of the sea for 60 million years, but it did not fight other overlords in the ocean, and eventually went extinct.
<h1>An evolutionary attempt by crocodiles over 200 million years</h1>
Crocodiles on land, evolving into proto-crocodiles, have thicker and larger bodies, and are covered with a layer of bone under the skin of crocodiles, which is more difficult to bite through. The bite force is also stronger, but at this time, the overlord on the land is the dinosaur, which is too strong, and the crocodile evolved into such a dish in the eyes of the dinosaur.
Since the road of pure fighting force is not feasible, the crocodile family may have decided to curve to save the country, so the crocodile family has evolved a branch, the Noto crocodile. This type of crocodile evolved strangely, the Camilla crocodile began to eat grass, probably to increase their chances of survival, after all, grass is easier to obtain than meat; lion-nosed crocodiles look better and develop into the cute line; armadillo crocodiles strengthen their defenses, just like the current armadillos covered with bone armor, may want to evolve their super defenses.
Armadillo crocodile
But at that time, the overlord of the earth was a dinosaur after all, and the crocodile was also a crocodile that had been a hegemon, and most crocodiles were more eager for power. They may have learned from dinosaurs, focused on modifying their teeth and large mouths, and strive to be the animals with the largest mouth and the strongest bite force.
At that time, a crocodile called a wild boar crocodile had fangs, and a crocodile called a duckling crocodile had a large mouth of blood basin that was seriously inconsistent with its size.
Just from the fact that crocodiles have made so many evolutionary attempts to modify their bodies in just a few million years, you know how seriously they are symmetrically dominating the earth.
Although it was impossible to defeat the dinosaurs after trying so much, this attempt allowed the crocodile to find a feng shui treasure suitable for their survival in the future: freshwater wetlands.
Freshwater wetlands are rich in fish, and there are animals on the shore to drink water, only need to wait for meat, food resources are simply too rich.
In the middle and late Jurassic, the rulers of freshwater wetlands were a group of creatures called the Dragons, which looked like crocodiles, and from a modern perspective, the ecological niche of the Dragons in the Middle and Late Jurassic period resembled the position of crocodiles today.
Compared to dinosaurs and overlords in the sea, the dragons are already the best challenge. So crocodiles challenged the freshwater wetlands to the dragons, until the Cretaceous, the new crocodiles have ruled almost all the freshwater wetlands on the earth, the most famous is the emperor crocodile, the crocodile, which is a fierce crocodile that looks similar to modern crocodiles.
After more than 50 million years, crocodiles have finally recovered the glory of the previous race in the freshwater wetlands of the new era, and when the organisms are extinct for the fifth time, most of the creatures are extinct along with the dinosaurs, and the crocodiles have also gone extinct, and the top ecological niches in the sea and on land have been vacated, and the opportunity for crocodiles has theoretically come.
<h1>What is it like to be targeted by earth in a position one step away from domination? </h1>
Another "Tethys crocodile" that successfully entered the ocean during the Cretaceous period also dominated the sea at one time, and their descendants evolved into a crocodile called "forest crocodile" after continuous evolution, survived the mass extinction of organisms at the end of the Cretaceous, survived the overlord of the sea, the dragon, and saw that it could become the king of sea climbers, and as a result, it encountered the Paleocene Eocene extreme heat event, the earth launched a high fever, ushered in a wave of super warming, completely disrupted the global water cycle, and the forest crocodile could not do so.
This wave of super-warming has affected not only the forest crocodile's way to dominate the ocean, but also the land crocodile's way to dominate. Because this high fever on the earth has spawned a giant python like the Titan Python, which can swallow crocodiles raw, crocodiles cannot resist, and Titan Python dominates the earth.
However, the Titan Python has only existed for about 3 million years, probably because the Earth has been quietly getting colder, and the Titan Python is as large as the body, and the temperature is less than 32 degrees Celsius.
After that, a crocodile called the Sibe crocodile rose rapidly, became the top predator of the South American continent at that time, and finally took the first step to dominate the earth.
Then, the descendants of the dinosaurs, the large carnivorous bird "Frightened Bird", came and fought with the Sibe crocodile on the South American continent for more than 50 million years, vowing to divide the highs and lows, but unfortunately the Sibei crocodile lost more than the victory.
Then the Earth suddenly became globally cold, the Quaternary Ice Age, and the extremely cold climate led to the extinction of the Sibel crocodile.
Scary birds
Later, the hoofed crocodile was once again active on the continent, but this time, encountering the ancestors of the early mammals Jackal, Wolf, Tiger and Leopard, the hoofed crocodile failed to successfully occupy the continent.
In Australia, a continent that was already separated from other continents at the time, crocodiles did not know the waves of fighting that the distant continent had experienced, and the "Ma's crocodile" family began to try to occupy the land, and this time it was even more tragic, encountering humans.
At this time, the ecological niche on the land has been replenished, and the crocodile has once again set its sights on the ocean. A crocodile evolved its beak into a long, pointed form, ready to emulate the ichthyosaurs that dominated the ocean during the Cretaceous period, and encountered cetaceans in the sea.
Crocodiles cannot be accommodated at the top of the land and sea, so crocodiles have to return to freshwater wetlands, usually ambushing prey in the water, sometimes going ashore to bask in the sun. Although it can't be a hegemon, but the strong bite force and a hard crocodile skin are also no one dares to underestimate, even the overlord must make it three points. Maybe crocodiles still haven't given up the dreams of their ancestors, secretly accumulating strength in the water to wait for the opportunity - if humans give them this opportunity, because by now, many crocodiles have become extinct because of people's pursuit of crocodile skins!