Sarcosuchus imperator means "emperor of the flesh crocodiles," and it truly was the emperor of the crocodiles. The specimen that Sereno found was about 40 feet (13 meters) in length, as long as a city bus, and twice as long as the largest modern crocodile on record. It probably weighed 17,500 pounds (8,000 kg), ten times as heavy as the heaviest living crocodile. Its skull was six feet (1.8 meters) long.
Sarcosuchus lived about 110 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period (140 to 65 million years ago). At this time, the region was very different; what is today the Sahara Desert was forested and home to large rivers. Sarcosuchus was found in river deposits, making it different from other large crocodiles of the past and present. Our modern saltwater crocodiles (often called "salties"), and the large extinct crocodiles Pholidosaurus and Terminonaris are all marine crocodiles.
Sarcosuchus was first discovered by paleontologist Alfred Felix de Lapparent, who found the fossilized teeth, jaws and osteoderms (bony, armored plates embedded in the skin of crocodilians) of a giant crocodile while he was on several prospecting missions to the Sahara Desert in the 1940's and 1950's. It was named and described in 1966 by France de Broin (Lapparent's niece) and Philippe Taquet.
Sereno's team has been able to assemble a skeleton that is about 50 percent complete; this is a composite skeleton of five individuals of Sarcosuchus that were all found in the same region.
The bone cortexes of extant (still living) reptiles show arrest lines marking the cessation of growth similar to the growth lines seen in trees. The bones of dinosaurs also show arrest lines in the cortex, suggesting cyclical growth, meaning that the animals grew more at certain times of the year such as spring and summer, when environmental conditions were better. These lines can be used to estimate the age of an individual at its death.
Using this information, it has been estimated that the Sarcosuchus to whom the jaws belong was about 42 years old. It has been estimated that Sarcosuchus would have taken 50 to 60 years to reach its full growth, and could have lived up to 100 years. If this particular Sarcosuchus had lived for a few more years, it could have grown even larger!
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