The Cretaceous era was a truly terrifying place, with galloping crocodiles capable of giving the better-known dinosaurs a run for their money. A documentary on the giant crocodiles of the era will screen on December 20th.
In 2009, National Geographic expeditions to Morocco and Niger revealed three new species of 100-million-year-old crocodiles, formally described in Zookeys.
The first specimen unearthed of Kaprosuchus saharicus would have been 6.5-meters-long (21 feet). Combined with three sets of sharp tusks and a snout that could probably have been used as a sort of battering ram, this must have been the stuff of nightmares for the beasts of the time. While it is thought that K. saharicus fed mainly on dinosaurs, our ancestral mammals probably had plenty of reason to be afraid.
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