Sprint crocs with ‘legs like greyhounds’ once ruled the Caribbean

In the past three decades, paleontologists have uncovered sharp, jagged, prehistoric teeth on the Caribbean Islands. The strange part? According to scientists, the owners of such teeth – equipped landrobins – must never exist there.

However, an international team of researchers found that millions of years ago a freaky crocodile-like country predator called Sebecid died the Caribbean dort until about five million years ago, long after the South American relatives died around 11 million years ago. The results strengthen the theory that Landbrücken or an island chain once connected the Caribbean with South America.

In 2023, the researchers found another petrified tooth in the Dominican Republic, this time with two vertebrae, which enabled them to finally identify the remains as belonging to Sebecids. As in a detailed study Experts who were released in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on Wednesday dated the fossils to 7.14 and 4.57 million years – more than three million years after their South American cousins ​​disappeared. “This emotion to find the fossil and recognize what it is is indescribable” opinion.

According to the statement, some Sebecids, which were built as large as a greyhound, were able to get up to 20 feet (6.1 meters) long. They were meat eaters who persecuted their prey on four long legs. In South America, they were the only members of the Notosuchia – a large group of extinct crocodiles – to survive the notorious asteroid, which decimated the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. With this annoying competition, Sebecids quickly rose the food chain.

But how could the land -based predators have reached the islands in the Caribbean? The researchers say these results support the Gaarlandia hypothesis – the idea that millions of years ago either land bridges or island chains South American animals such as Sebecids made it possible to reach the Caribbean. When the passage disappeared, Sebecids would have been isolated from every threat that caused their relatives in South America to disappear millions of years before them.

If researchers confirm that the strange teeth of other islands also belonged to Sebecids, this means that these APEX predators have been influencing the ecology of the region for millions of years. Despite the fact that “you cannot predict this view of the modern ecosystem,” said Jonathan Bloch, co-author of the study and curator of the paleontology of vertebrates in the Florida Museum of Natural History. Today, most Caribbean predators such as birds, snakes and even crocodiles are significantly smaller.

Nevertheless, the study shows that there is probably a fire – or in this case a sprint, extinct crocodile like a greyhound.