My reviewer (a noted crocodilian expert) crossed this out, writing in the margin 'Do you want to remain a credible scientist'? Anyway, it is an idea still worth considering. In the initial draft of an article I wrote about crocodilian history (Naish 2001) I mentioned that Mekosuchus might have been a tree climber. This isn't regarded as likely by all fossil crocodilian experts. inexpectatus was a terrestrial form and it has even been suggested that it might have been scansorial: that is, able to climb trees (this idea comes from Paul Willis, though I don't think he's documented it in the technical literature). Judging by its limb bone morphology and the places where its remains are found, M. Some mekosuchines probably behaved much like living amphibious crocodiles - indeed they evolved in an Australia that was devoid of the modern Crocodylus species (these first appeared there in the Pliocene) - but others, like Quinkana, appear to have been terrestrial predators that might have behaved like giant monitor lizards. It is most often associated with theropod dinosaurs. ** Ziphodonty describes a tooth type where the teeth are recurved and laterally compressed. The specific name honours Paul Darrow, the British actor 'best known for his role in the television series 'Blake's Seven', in recognition of his support of continuing palaeontological investigation of the Riversleigh deposits' (Willis et al. * There are several Baru species, but the first one to be named is B. Rather, they seem to be a clade within the larger group Crocodylidae. Mekosuchines aren't regarded as a distinct 'family' anymore, incidentally (as was proposed by Buffetaut and Balouet). A few unnamed Australian species, including some peculiar long-snouted, gharial-like forms, are also probably members of the mekosuchine radiation, and we'll meet more members of the group in a minute. To date this group includes generalised Kambara from Eocene Queensland and Australosuchus from Oligocene-Miocene South Australia, short-skulled Miocene Trilophosuchus from Queensland, the broad-snouted Oligocene-Miocene Baru* species, broad-snouted Pliocene-Pleistocene Pallimnarchus, and ziphodont** Miocene-Pleistocene Quinkana from Northern Territory and Queensland (Salisbury & Willis 1996, Willis 1993, 1997, Willis & Mackness 1996, Willis & Molnar 1991, Willis et al. Thanks to the research of Paul Willis and his colleagues however, we now know that this species was merely among the youngest of a predominantly Australasian radiation of Cenozoic crocodilians, the mekosuchines. inexpectatus was unique and without any apparent close relatives. inexpectatus remains with kitchen waste at Nessadiou (200 km north of Noumea) has been reported (Balouet 1989). Beside the crocodile, these include large megapodes, rails, meiolaniid turtles and a monitor lizard. inexpectatus was among the several New Caledonian endemics that were hunted to extinction. Humans arrived on New Caledonia about 4000 years ago, so it is likely that M. inexpectatus is unsure, but it may have been around as recently as 1670 years ago (Mead et al. inexpectatus was essentially modern: its remains come from deposits that are certainly less than 4000 years old. They regarded it as distinctive enough for its own family, Mekosuchidae, and they proposed that Mekosuchidae might be a relict group outside of the clade formed by the living crocodilian species (Balouet & Buffetaut 1987).Īll of this was made more surprising by the fact that M. By 1987, Buffetaut and colleague Jean-Christophe Balouet had enough material (now from mainland New Caledonia as well as the Isle of Pines) to name the species. Based on the apparently archaic nature of its postorbital bar, Buffetaut (1983) speculated that this animal might be a late-surviving relict form from the Cretaceous. It was a small crocodilian, around 2 m long, and crushing teeth at the back of its jaws suggest that it ate molluscs on occasion. Discovered in 1980, this species entered the literature in 1983 when Eric Buffetaut described its remains (teeth and skull bones) from a site on the Isle of Pines, just off New Caledonia. The first of these animals to be discovered was Mekosuchus inexpectatus from New Caledonia (life restoration shown above), a species that most interested people have heard about due to its coverage in popular books (e.g., Jean-Christophe Balouet's Extinct Species of the World, Tim Flannery's The Future Eaters and Charles Ross's Crocodiles and Alligators ). This article originally appeared in 2006 on Tet Zoo ver 1, and here it is again. In fact, judging from recent discoveries, small terrestrial crocodilians were an ordinary component of many tropical island groups, and they presumably still would be, had they not been made extinct by people. Here's an interesting contention: until just a few thousand years ago, small crocodilians inhabited the tropical islands of the South Pacific and elsewhere.
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