Sarcosuchus: The Supercroc


Sarcosuchus
From the shape of Sarchosuchus's jaws and teeth we can infer that Sarcosuchus was a generalist predator, meaning that it ate a variety of animal foods. It has broader, more robust jaws than its fish-eating relatives and probably fed on a diet not only of lungfish, coelacanths and turtles, but also dinosaurs. It was probably an ambush predator, meaning that it would submerge most of its body the way that modern crocodiles do and wait for a dinosaur to come to the river to drink. Sarcosuchus would then suddenly erupt from the water, clamping its powerful jaws on its prey and dragging it into the water to drown.

During the National Geographic Special "SuperCroc," we watched paleontologist Greg Erickson conduct studies on the bite pressure of modern crocodiles. He determined that large modern crocodiles can deliver a bite pressure of over 2,000 pounds per square inch. By extrapolation, Erickson determined that a crocodile the size of Sarcosuchus could deliver a bite pressure of about 18,000 pounds per square inch. This means that any creature unlucky enough to be grabbed by a Sarcosuchus would probably not be able to get away.

Sarcosuchus was truly an animal to be feared.

More information about Sarcosuchus:

Full-sized skeletal casts and exhibits about Sarcosuchus can be seen at the National Geographic Society Museum, Explorers Hall in Washington D.C. through February 24, 2002, and at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, California, through January 27, 2002. These exhibits will tour the U.S., so be sure to visit the National Geographic Society website to find out if they will be coming to a museum near you.

A fleshed-out recreation and exhibit will tour Asia and Latin America in 2002 as well, and a Sarcosuchus exhibit was unveiled in November 2001 at the Australian Museum in Sydney, Australia.

For more information about Sarcosuchus, be sure to read Paul Sereno's article "SuperCroc" in the December 2001 issue of National Geographic.

Sereno's article "The giant crocodyloform Sarcosuchus from the Cretaceous of Africa" will be published in Science later this year.

For more links to Natural History Museums, be sure to visit my website.

The copyright of the article Sarcosuchus: The Supercroc in Paleontology is owned by Beverly Eschberger. Permission to republish Sarcosuchus: The Supercroc in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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