Paleontologists unveiled on Wednesday the fossil of a younger marine crocodile courting again 10 to 12 million years that was found in a Peruvian desert.
The fossil of the gharial – or fish-eating – crocodile, round three meters lengthy (almost 10 toes), was found late 2023 in good situation in Peru’s Ocucaje desert, round 350 kilometers (190 miles) south of the capital Lima.
“This is the first time we found a juvenile of this species, that is to say, it had not reached its maximum size yet. It died before that,” vertebrate paleontologist Mario Gamarra advised a information convention.
The cranium and jaws of those specimens differed from that of at the moment’s crocodiles and alligators, in keeping with Gamarra, who headed the reconstruction of the fossil.
“They had an elongated snout and their diet was entirely piscivorous, feeding on fish,” stated Gamarra.
“The closest current relative to this crocodile would be the Indian gharial,” he added.
The invention was made collectively by Peru’s Geological, Mining and Metallurgical Institute and the La Union faculty.
Peru’s Ocucaje desert is wealthy in fossils, resembling four-legged dwarf whales, dolphins, sharks and different species from the Miocene interval – between 5 and 23 million years in the past – that have been beforehand found there.
