Daily Dose of Prehistory: Back From Extinction 16
5 years ago by deleted · 324 Likes · 5 comments · Fresh
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deleted
· 5 years ago
· FIRST
Razanandrongobe sakalavae, which means "Ancestor of the Large Lizard" in Malagasy, is an extinct genus of carnivorous terrestrial crocodile that lived in what is now Madagascar during the Mid-Jurassic. Known only from a chunk of skull and several teeth, Razanandrongobe had teeth and denticles that appeared to be utilized for crushing bone. In fact, its denticles (otherwise known as tooth serrations) were proportionally larger than the denticles of Tyrannosaurus rex. Its jaws were very robust, taller than they were wide, similarly built to the aforementioned Tyrannosaurus, showing the two had evolved along similar lines in a way. Studies in 2017 showed that Razanandrongobe was the oldest known notosuchian, a diverse group of crocodillians that evolved everything from herbivorous diets to armadillo-like armor. Judging from the proportions of its skull (which would've been around 35 inches long) Razanandrongobe could've been up to 23 feet long, though this is only an estimate.
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deleted
· 5 years ago
This is the first one you’ve done that I didn’t know... and the coolest one out of the bunch! Thank you for posting these, I really look forward to them!
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funkmasterrex
· 5 years ago
I wanna know more about these herbivorous crocs and if the armadillo-like armor is just a reference to their scales or if they seriously got crazy with it. I honestly didn't know about herbivorous crocs.
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deleted
· 5 years ago
Wikipedia is your friend. There’s a lot of good info there and I even used it for supplementary material when I was studying this stuff in university.
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tanuki86
· 5 years ago
Aye, wingardium leviosa!