Paleontologists ontdekken een nieuw zoogdier: De Pakasuchus kapilimai een  ‘Cat Crocodile’

Paleontologists in Tanzania made a strange discovery: a tiny crocodile, maybe the size of a cat, with a diverse set of teeth. Calling it Pakasuchus kapilimai (“cat crocodile”), they point out that the tiny dino-croc specimen only has 13 teeth, but  those teeth contain molars and canines, like you’d find in a dog or a human, whereas modern crocodiles have uniformly conical teeth.

Pakasuchus apparently lived on land, due to its long legs and nostrils that existed on the front end of its snout. A CT scan revealed Pakasuchus‘ molars, which actually meet: this means that the creature would eat with an almost-chewing motion (mobile jaws are unheard-of in reptiles until now).

Missing from the Pakasuchus skeletons were the bony plates which gird modern crocs- this ancient specimen would likely have been faster and lighter on its feet. An artist’s impression (linked below) shows Pakasuchus getting air as it hunts.

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Pakasuchus lived in the mid-Cretaceous period, when the gigantic supercontinent called Pangaea has begun to split up into separate land masses. In the Northern Hemisphere, small mammals were on the rise, exploiting all sorts of fresh ecological opportunities while dinosaurs loomed overhead. But in the Southern Hemisphere, small mammals were relatively rare and crocodiles came to fulfil the same roles using very similar adaptations.