the differences between crocodiles and alligators in case u were not aware
Both are friends.
But how about gharial and caiman?
here comes the rest of the family
The gang’s all here
ALL OF THEM ARE GOOD BOYS KAREN
this is a perfect post to talk about how the boys who make the prehistoric super-croc documentaries are idiots. I’m talking of course about sarcosuchus imperator, a 35 ft 8 ton croc forerunner from 112 million years ago. Let’s look at this beastie
All the documentaries and Science and Nature segments and stuff I’ve seen on Sarcosuchus basically spend the whole time going “but, would it have eaten T-rex? It totally would have. It would have, right? Probably ate big dinosaurs? Yeah, would have eaten T-rex for sure sometimes” and it’s total nonsense that drives me crazy and helps reenforce all the Sarcosuchus art turning out like this
It’s ridiculous. See the distinct shape of the Sarcosuchus snout? that thin snootle they have? let me remind you
Why, hmmm, that shape looks like several living crocodilians doesn’t it. See those croc friends in the post up there that look like this? The Gharial, the Tomistoma, the Mecistops? EVERY ONE OF THEM HAS A DIET OF PRIMARILY FISH. Also frogs and crabs and things. And the fact that they do is closely related to the shape of their skull. See, when you have a big wide head like an alligator or a Nile crocodile swinging it around through liquid is like waving an oar underwater - very hard to be fast and precise enough to catch a darting fish. So any crocodilian that eats mostly fish has a THIN snout, like waving a broomstick through water instead - making better speed and accuracy possible. Sarcosuchus were really really big, so they probably ate … big fish. Now, sure, a 16 foot Tomistoma isn’t going to turn down the occasional monkey or bird, even a small deer if they can get one, but they aren’t well designed for large prey. Crocodilians have trap-and-hold teeth, no shearing or grinding teeth - they can’t really take bites out of things or chew. Those that eat large prey do so by grabbing a chunk of whatever dead prey and either flinging their head back and forth until the chunk tears free, or employing the nefarious “death roll”. Thin snouts are not built to take the pressures and forces of these activities, especially if the prey item weighs a lot. So clearly, while large Sarcosuchus may well have grabbed the occasional land beast, it would have preferred animals significantly smaller than itself, and, most importantly, IT WOULD HAVE PROBABLY EATEN FISH AND SMALLER AQUATIC CREATURES THAT IT COULD SWALLOW WHOLE. But all the information on the Sarcosuchus diet is like, fanboys falling all over themselves trying to insist that they ate big game. Even the diet section of their wikipedia article is just a bunch of “no really, I swear, it ate dinosaurs, even though it really seems like it wouldn’t”. Most of this (in the wiki as well as quoted everywhere else) is based on the observations of Paul Sereno, who discovered a bunch of the first mostly complete skeletal remains of Sarcosuchus about 20 years ago. Paul Sereno is a paleontologist via geology, not a paleobiologist. And I’m not trying to defame him, but he spends a lot of time in front of the camera on TV shows, where it is in their best interests to get him to give hypothetical answers that sensationalize whatever he is talking about. Because he’s working for a media company that wants to advertise its program or article with a picture of a giant crocodile eating big fierce dinos, like the National Geographic “Super Croc” magazine cover up there (don’t forget, Nat Geo became owned by Fox/Rupert Murdoch and then Disney bought them, so… it’s not the same science it used to be)… anyway, Sereno basically said that the ratio of sizes showed their snouts weren’t quite as thin compared to the rest of the skull as fish eating crocs today, so it would have had a diet like that of a nile croc (are you kidding me!? look at the difference in shapes). he points out the skull has reinforcing, but like, fully grown Sarcosuchus had a heavy-ass 5 foot skull, of course it needed a little reenforcing when it reached that size. ANYWAY. The thing that pisses me off is that when the diet of Sarcosuchus is discussed in these “educational” programs and articles THE WHOLE FOCUS is always “but it ate big dinosaurs, right? Like it maybe could have, so it definitely did, right? It’s teeth aren’t AS specialized as a gharial’s, so it ate big dinosaurs, right?” and they never actually discus, i don’t know, WHAT SPECIES OF FISH AND SMALL AQUATIC ANIMALS lived at the same time and place, like, forget what it maybe could have managed to eat, and talk about the species of its highly probable diet!! UGh. Let me end this on a less bitter note by including some bonus material for the original post, because I didn’t see this beautiful creature on the list Orinoco Crocodile
(I can’t help myself - even though it’s snout isnt AS thin as a Gharial’s, and its teeth aren’t AS specialized, and it OCCASIONALLY eats other stuff, the Orinoco MOSTLY eats fish. I’m just sayin’)
