In the parched Sahara desert, Dr Paul Sereno uncovers the skull of a ten-ton giant SuperCroc, the size of a school bus and one of the largest crocs to have lived.
Sereno joins forces with reptile expert Dr Brady Barr for an around-the-globe adventure-packed quest to flesh out this ancient 40-foot croc. Computer animation takes viewers back in time to see how SuperCroc might have lived and battled for its food.
From the blistering sands of the Sahara, palaeontologist Paul Sereno has pulled an incredible find: the nearly complete remains of Sarcosuchus imperator, one of the largest crocodilians to ever walk the Earth.
As long as a city bus, and weighing in at about ten tons, ‘SuperCroc’ lives up to its nickname.
Sarcosuchus imperator, or ‘flesh crocodile emperor’, is thought to have lived when rivers still coursed over what is now sub-Saharan Africa. Sarcosuchus prowled the river banks, crushing fish and other creatures in its massive jaws.
Palaeontologists first gave Sarcosuchus imperator a name in the 1960s. Four decades later, in 2000, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sereno and his team of fossil hunters found Sarcosuchus’ remains so enormous they dubbed the creature SuperCroc.
Sereno and his team, funded in part by the National Geographic Society, pored through the hot sands of a fossil graveyard called Gadoufaoua in Niger, unearthing scores of Sarcosuchus remains, including vertebrae, limb bones, armour plates, jaws, and a nearly complete 6-foot (1.8-meter) skull.
From their find, Sereno believes SuperCroc weighed as much as ten tons and measured as long as 40 feet (12 meters). Now Sereno has teamed with National Geographic’s resident herpetologist, Brady Barr.
They’re studying today’s tiny-by-comparison crocodilians - alligators, crocodiles, caimans, and gavials - to learn more about the giant SuperCroc, which is undoubtedly one of the largest crocs that ever lived.
For more details about SuperCroc and its history, please follow the following link:
Reviews:
“This documentary is about the discovery of a 40 foot plus fossil of an ancient crocodile, more than large enough to eat many of the dinosaurs that were their contemporaries. Anyone who likes either crocs or dinosaurs would enjoy this National Geographic Special. I would especially like to recommend it to any parents who have run out of dinosaur documentaries to feed the insatiable appetites of their dino-hungry children.”
“Although the focus of this program is Sarcosuchus, the fossil ‘SuperCroc’ of what is now the Sahara, it also includes a great deal of information on contemporary crocodilians through ‘Croc-Hunteresque’ segments in all sorts of interesting places. Particularly striking are a night croc ‘hunt’ in Costa Rica, and Adam Britton’s unique method of inserting and removing sensors into and out of a Saltwater Croc’s stomach (by hand - you won’t believe it till you see it).Recovering the animal’s fossilised skull is covered at some length and in such a way as to convey the tension inherent in recovering such a heavy, cumbersome, delicate, and valuable chunk of rock without destroying it or hurting yourself. Wannabe palaeontologists take note! My kids and I still think it’s a blast, even after watching it a half-dozen or so times. Now, if only the travelling display would just come to somewhere near us….”
No comments:
Post a Comment