Paleontologist Paul Sereno is bite-size compared with the five-foot-long jaws of his big find.
Paul Sereno knows what it's like to go into croc shock. About a year ago, the dinosaur hunter dug up the bones of a 40-foot-long crocodile in Niger, a country in Africa. The "super croc" was as long as a school bus, weighed as much as a small whale and had jaws about five feet long!
Don't worry! This giant reptile isn't going to show up in your local pond. It last waddled the earth about 110 million years ago, during the Middle Cretaceous Period. That was about 105 million years before early humans were around. But the super croc had plenty of dinosaurs to keep it company—and, of course, to eat.
| Paleontologist Paul Sereno is bite-size compared with the five-foot-long jaws of his big find. |
Digging up Monsters
Sereno is a well-known paleontologist. He travels the world in search of the fossils of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. Although his team actually discovered the crocodile bones about a year ago, they only announced the discovery two weeks ago. Why did they wait so long?
"When you find a bone, you can't just shout, 'Hey, I found something!' right away," says Gabrielle Lyon, a member of the super-croc expedition. "You want to back up your discovery with science." The team spent the past year studying the fossils and comparing them with living reptiles.
By measuring living crocodiles in the wild, Sereno and his team were able to determine how long the super croc may have been and how much it probably weighed. "There's nothing like getting on the back of a crock with a ruler to really get your blood going," says Lyon.
Sereno believes that this super croc had reached only 80% of its full size when it died. He estimates that it took about 50 or 60 years for one of these giants to reach its full length. Modern crocodiles can live about 70 years in the wild.
Paleontologists say the super croc belonged to the species Sarcosuchus [Sar-koh-Soo-kis] imperator, which means "flesh crocodile emperor." Fossils belonging to this species were first found in 1964, but this skeleton is the most complete.
|  My, what big teeth you had! The croc's tooth-studded jaw was among the fossils found in Niger's Tenere Desert. |
Built for Battle
The king of crocs ruled the African river where it lived and hunted. Not many creatures could hope to win a fight with super croc. It was constructed like a fighting machine. Armor-like bony plates called scutes covered the head, body and part of the tail. The scutes helped protect the croc from attacks. Its six-foot-long skull had a long narrow jaw that was studded with more than 100 teeth, which gave it a bite with might.
"This thing could have easily have easily pulled down a good-size dinosaur," Sereno says. "A small sauropod, 20 or 30 feet in length, would have been no problem." There were plenty of these long-necked, small-headed dinosaurs in this region of Africa for the croc to snack on.
The super croc's body was also designed for sneak attacks. The creatures' eye sockets were angled upward, allowing it to remain submerged underwater while watching the shoreline. The crocodile would wait for unsuspecting prey to approach the river or lake to get a sip of water. Then BAM! The crocodile would open its mouth and chomp down with its teeth!
"And that would have been it," Sereno says. "Once it clamped onto the leg or neck of an animal, there wasn't a lot the prey could do." The super croc would drag its dinner back into the water, where it could finish it off by drowning it.
Croc, Go Home!
Sereno and his team have assembled the crocodile's skeleton. It is now housed in Chicago, Illinois. What lucky museum will get to keep super croc? Sereno and his team have made copies of the bones. "But the original fossils will be returned to Niger," says Lyon. They will be put in the National Museum in Niamey, the country's capital.