Largest saltwater crocodile in history have been found

Crocodile is one of the animals that survived of the age of dinosaurs. These animals are not much evolved since the birth of millions of years ago, but the size is shrinking from its ancestors.

But you know, how the size of the largest crocodile ever found? This fact may be very surprising. The largest crocodile ever inhabited the ocean, was found to have emerged in the Tunisian desert. Then why these large predators could be stranded and appeared in the desert?

Machimosaurus could have grown to more than 30 feet (almost ten meters) long. (Picture from: http://bit.ly/1Zml0Cm)

This prehistoric predators, able to grow with nearly ten meters long and weighing up to three tons. The paleontologists have dubbed the new species as Machimosaurus rex and described in the Cretaceous Research journal.

Although only found fossilized, but can identify the creature lived about 120 million year ago to be the largest known from pedigree crocodile who spent their life in the sea.

A reconstruction of Machimosaurus rex based on the fossil bones found (white) shows its size compared with a human. (Picture from: http://bit.ly/1Zml0Cm)

"This is a new discovery of the neat parts of the world that has not been widely explored for fossils," said Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist of the University of Edinburgh.

The fossils were found, including parts of the skull and some other bones, discovered by Federico Fanti of the University of Bologna with the support of colleagues at the National Geographic Society.

Scientists are waiting for the discovery of more complete skeleton, to know exactly how big this Machimosaurus rex was. But assuming that new species have the same proportion as their close relatives, Machimosaurus rex estimated to have a length of 9.6 meters.

Meanwhile, the largest freshwater crocodile ever found named Sarcosuchus imperator, which lived about 110 million years ago, and is able to grow over 12 meters, weighing up to eight tons. But since then, the Deinosuchus giant and his line was dead.

"Machimosaurus rex likely to have a stocky body, relatively short and relatively rounded teeth. And the size of the skull is able to provide exceptional bite force," Fanti said.

For scientists, the most important aspect of Machimosaurus rex is not on its size. The paleontologists have long debated whether there was a mass extinction at the end of the Jurassic period, 145 million years ago.

The Machimosaurus rex fossils discoveries in the limestone suggests that if there is a mass extinction at the time, but did not kill all life on this planet. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC]

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