Amber fossils ARE SOOO COOL. It's insane to me you can see a 100 million year old extinct creature in its full form. All of the DNA is long gone but its body is perfectly preserved as if it died only yesterday.
Chimerarachne seen below, who had a cool tail whip!
Lolong, reliably the largest modern crocodilian ever measured by humans, and a tragic tale that shows what happens when rural populations mingle with the natural habitat of such mystical creatures they're not prepared for, RIP Lolong.
T. rex is more closely related to this little dinosaur (a hummingbird) than T. rex is to Allosaurus. Also, a hummingbird's humerus is way smaller than it's eyeball. Go home, evolution, you're drunk! 🦖
@historicalbiology.bsky.social - exciting new era has begun! Our first big step to becoming an Open Science & FAIR Journal. If anyone has any questions please do contact our Data Editor @brooke-long-fox.bsky.social
A couple more reptiles I want to appear in PhP Ice Age are Paludirex and Quinkana. Megalania and the saltwater crocodile weren’t the only large predatory reptiles of Pleistocene Australia.
Here I’m going to focus on Paludirex.
Most of the currently known specimens referrable Paludirex vincenti are indeed Pliocene in age, including the holotype. However, there is one Pleistocene specimen of Paludirex vincenti, the so called 'Lansdowne snout'.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Of course we can't talk mekosuchines without mentioning Quinkana, a mysterious animal with a deep skull and serrated teeth often interpreted to have been terrestrial. Sadly, while I would have loved to see it, the lack of remains means its at a high risk to age badly.
And the larger, more robust Paludirex vincenti, although much like Gunggamarandu its not entirely clear whether or not it actually reached into the Pleistocene or died during the Pliocene. For entertainment value tho I would have loved to see it featured.
We've finally arrived at mekosuchines, a unique radiation exclusive to Australia and some islands. First lets talk about Paludirex, the swamp king. There are two species to be considered, the smaller Paludirex gracilis which was definitely Pleistocene
What Gunggamarandu would offer is a unique branch of gavialoid on continental Australia. Phylogenies suggest it may have been a very early branch and gharials are an underappreciated part of Cenozoic Australian croc fauna, otherwise dominated by the next few taxa
Instead, lets turn to our last gavialoid over on the Australian mainland: Gunggamarandu.
Now two big caveats
1. it's not known from the most complete material
2. it's not entirely clear whether or not it was Pliocene or Pleistocene, like another croc later on
The Kem Kem was home to a few terrestrial crocodylomorphs, and the 2m-long predator Hamadasuchus is one of the more intimidating ones!
Size comparison below ⬇️
#sciart #paleoart
There is no evidence to support that mekosuchines lived in the tree canopy or that they hunted by dropping on their prey from the trees like leopards can.
And to be clear about tree climbing - not talking here about mekosuchines being able to climb on a low branch along a river bank or a relatively short vertical obstacle. There are plenty of videos of extant crocs doing such feats, like alligators climbing over a fence for example (continued)
A great summary by Adam Yates on the "drop croc" topic. In short, there is no evidence to support tree climbing in any mekosuchine crocodylian.
Also, using AI generated articles to further promote this unsubstantiated idea is a really bad look.
Day 2 of #2025SVP announcements!
We are delighted to be promoting 6 of our editorial board members: Arnau Bolet, Diego Castaneda, Masaya Iijima, Beniamino Mecozzi, Jorgo Ristevski, & Mohd Shafi Bhat, to associate editors!
Check out this new paper about crocodylian, likely mekosuchine, eggshell fragments from the Eocene of Queensland. Great to see this material finally published.
doi.org/10.1080/0272...
Barinasuchus arveloi: as an animal, you just cannot get any cooler than this #paleoart
This hatchling encounters a fully grown Tyrannosaurus rex on a winter morning - 12 metres long and 8 tonnes. The little one will never attain such colossal stature - he has a gloriously different destiny ahead of him.
#sciart #paleoart
Replica skeleton of Baru iylwenpeny on display at the Queensland Museum. This is part of the new Croc! exhibit. #MuseumCore #CrocQM
My then supervisor, Steve Salisbury, knew of an Indigenous speaker of those languages - Adrien Beattie- so we consulted Adrien to ensure we got the correct words, and their spelling and pronunciation right for Gunggamarandu maunala.
Gunggamarandu maunala was fun to coin. I don't speak Barunggam and Wakka Wakka, so I relied on a dictionary. However, not many words were translated in the dictionary for those languages, so I had to come up with a meaningful and (hopefully) cool name from the limited number of available words.
Happy #FossilFriday! Meet Paludirex, a BIG #crocodile from #Australia, one of many crocs coming from the Science Museum of Minnesota to @badweatherbrew.bsky.social for #CroctoberFest tomorrow (Sat, Sept 20)! We’ll be there 12-5pm with sooo much + I’m giving two talks, come raise a glass with us! 🐊🍺🐊
Paludirex is such a cool name! Credit goes to Adam Yates for coming up with the name Paludirex, he was one of my co-authors on that paper.
For #Croctober Day 20 I want to shout out some fun etymology. To the left you see Paludirex, a large mekosuchine who's name means "swamp king". On the right is Gunggamarandu, which translates to "river boss".
Both have been named by Jorgo Ristevski
Art by Eleanor Pease
Confractosuchus and the unsupervized infant child it swallowed before dying
Australia in the Anthropocene: Linking Past, Present and Future. Wonderful project workshop yesterday exploring the diverse methods our students and ECRs are using to examine how Australia's ecosystems have been shaped by people over the long-term and why it matters today.
For #Croctober Day 11 we got Confractosuchus (art by Julius Csotonyi)
Confracto once inhabited the Winton Formation of Australia, but unlike the tiny Isisfordia was sizable enough to even feed on dinosaurs. Which we know because we found the bones of an elasmarian in its stomach
#Croctober Day 6
Heres a fun one from a research history POV.
In 1997 researchers described a snout tip under the name Baru huberi and in 2016 skull elements were given the name Ultrastenos willisi
Only last year did we recognize that both fossils belonged to a single individual
📣Editor spotlight
Dr Jorgo Ristevski is an early career palaeontologist that studies crocodyliforms. He researches the extinct crocodylian clade Mekosuchinae. He has named and described several extinct crocodyliform genera and species, including Australia's giant gavialoid Gunggamarandu maunala 🐊
