We've found him, guys: behold the crocoduck!

[Pulsar]

Yep, for years, the missing crocoduck has been our greatest nightmare, but now all of us can breathe a sigh of relief: they found it, along with many other fascinating crocodile fossils. From sciencedaily:

A suite of five ancient crocs, including one with teeth like boar tusks and another with a snout like a duck's bill, have been discovered in the Sahara by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Paul Sereno. The five fossil crocs, three of them newly named species, are remains of a bizarre world of crocs that inhabited the southern land mass known as Gondwana some 100 million years ago.

Sereno, a professor at the University of Chicago, and his team unearthed the strange crocs in a series of expeditions beginning in 2000 in the Sahara. Many of the fossils were found lying on the surface of a remote, windswept stretch of rock and dunes. The crocs galloped and swam across present-day Niger and Morocco when broad rivers coursed over lush plains and dinosaurs ruled.

At 40 feet in length and weighing 8 tons, Sarcosuchus imperator, popularly known as SuperCroc, was the first and largest of the crocs Sereno found in the Sahara, but it was not the strangest, Sereno said. He and his teams soon discovered key fossils of five previously unknown or poorly understood species, most of them walking "upright" with their arms and legs under the body like a land mammal instead of sprawled out to the sides, bellies touching the ground.

The crocs and their nicknames:

• BoarCroc: New species, Kaprosuchus saharicus; fossils found in Niger. Twenty-foot-long upright meat eater with an armored snout for ramming and three sets of dagger-shaped fangs for slicing. Closest relative found in Madagascar.
  
  
• RatCroc: New species, Araripesuchus rattoides; fossils found in Morocco. Three-foot-long, upright plant and grub eater. Pair of buckteeth in lower jaw used to dig for food. Closest relative in South America.
  
  
• PancakeCroc: New species, Laganosuchus thaumastos; fossils found in Niger and Morocco. Twenty-foot-long, squat fish eater with a three-foot pancake-flat head. Spike-shaped teeth on slender jaws. Likely rested motionless for hours, its jaws open and waiting for prey. Closest relative from Egypt. The scientific paper also names a close relative discovered by the team in Morocco, Laganosuchus maghrebensis.
  
  
• DuckCroc: New fossils of previously named species, Anatosuchus minor. Fossils found in Niger. Three-foot-long upright fish-, frog- and grub-eater. Broad, overhanging snout and Pinocchio-like nose. Special sensory areas on the snout end allowed it to root around on the shore and in shallow water for prey. Closest relative in Madagascar.
  
  
• DogCroc: New fossils of named species, Araripesuchus wegeneri. Fossils found in Niger include five skeletons, all next to each other on a single block of rock. Three-foot-long upright plant and grub eater with a soft, doglike nose pointing forward. Likely an agile galloper, but also a capable swimmer. Closest relative in Argentina.

A documentary about the finds will premiere tomorrow on National Geographic Channel. Here's Sereno with the croc skulls:

The "DuckCroc" skull is the small one on the lower right. The first one was already discovered in 2003 (how did we miss this???), according to wiki. Not as impressive as the infamous supercroc, but fasinating nonetheless. It would have looked something like this:

So, dear Comfy & Cammy, any questions?

 

[TheFearmonger]

Comfort already knows it exists. He has a golden one :lol:

 

[Aught3]

No wings, no dice.

But still seriously cool.

 

[Salv]

That's awesome. Looks like mammals may have been having a difficult time way back when.

 

[Squawk]

That's awesome. Looks like mammals may have been having a difficult time way back when.

Mammals were effectively limited to shrew like creatures till the dinosaurs bought it. Tough to be a mammal back then.

 

[Giant Blue Anteater]

I was already familiar with Anatosuchus (by the way when I first learned about it I thought it win the award for being a real crocoduck as well) before new fossils of it were found recently, as posted here.

This is an amazing find indeed! And it is also a fortune to find a close relative (Laganosuchus) of the great Stomatosuchus, who's remains were destroyed during a bombing run on Munich during World War II, that way we can determine what the latter animal was really like.

That's awesome. Looks like mammals may have been having a difficult time way back when.

Mammals were effectively limited to shrew like creatures till the dinosaurs bought it. Tough to be a mammal back then.

That was not always the case...

 

[M.W.T.B.F.]

I hereby nominate Kirk Cameron to be presented as the discoverer of the crocoduck! After all, he clearly knew it existed before this "scientist" did!

THAT WAS SARCASM.