A Giant Extinct Caiman - Purussaurus

in the prehistoric depths of the Amazon a giant predator once ruled this beast bigger than anything like it alive today would have been capable of preying on almost anything it wanted and its role at the top of the food chain had some remarkably dramatic effects upon the very ecosystem the creature was a part of this was poor Soros the giant caiman of the Maya scene there are actually three different species of poor Soros known today with the first species to be named the type species being poor Soros brasiliensis in later years Perot Soros novensys and then Perot Soros Murr and I were also named undescribed clearly it's quite obvious from the fossilized remains of the creatures that these were big animals Perot Soros therefore joins the ranks of other general of giant prehistoric crocodilians including the Cretaceous age sarcosuchus and Deinosuchus however there are some interesting anatomical differences that make per surah stand out as potentially even more terrifying than these other organisms according to a particular study from 2015 which analyzed the length mass and bite force of Perot Soros brasiliensis this beast potentially had one of the most powerful bites amongst all tetrapods as well as being the heaviest crocodile morph to ever have been recorded these results were obtained through the use of calculations based on examinations of living caiman species as well as data from all of the 23 currently surviving crocodilians the study concluded that the caiman could achieve masses of around 8.4 metric tonnes with an incredible bite force of just over 69,000 Newtons additionally the total length of the animal was estimated from the fossil remains being placed at 12 and a half metres per asuras possessed a snout those far broader and shorter than that seen in the Cretaceous Giants darn asuka's and sarcosuchus and as a result a much bulkier neck with stronger larger muscles would likely have been required by the animal to support the front of his skull resulting in the increased mass of the animal however the methods used in the study to calculate the weight by force and length of Perot Soros have been brought into question as there may have been an error with the exact measurements of the fossil skull material in this case the total length of the species is brought down to ten point nine meters the mass is reduced to five point six metric tons and the bite force is fifth 2,500 Newton's still remarkably impressive figures for such an animal though unfortunately the only good fossils currently known for Paris auras are skull material making a reliable estimate of total body length pretty difficult to arrive at but the skull still preserves a lot of interesting anatomies that have allowed paleontologists to gain some fascinating insights into this extinct caimans lifestyle teeth are especially good at telling us a great deal about an organism's way of life and the adaptations visible in the teeth of Paris auras are therefore highly valuable to our understanding of the whole creature while there are differences between the teeth of all three porous aura species they are all relatively similar in size and appear to curve slightly backwards and inwards this makes the teeth very well suited to piercing and smashing in addition to making them more resistant to breaking when they come into contact with hard materials such as bone ridges that have been observed on the teeth to would also enable the structures to better puncture and slice flesh and these features lead to an overall view of a crocodilian that preyed upon other large bodied vertebrates some of the other adaptations identified in the skull of purussaurus includes structures that potentially aided the animal in dealing with the huge cranial forces brought about by the immense bites one of the most notable skull characteristics of the caiman is the large external Narus or nostril which takes up a great deal of the rostrum itself this big space and the particular Narus bone anatomy that accompanies it have been interpreted as a way for the significant forces brought about by the jaws snapping shots to be dissipated without damaging the skull and hence enabling purussaurus to attain the colossal bite forces that have been calculated for it so we know that this organism was incredibly big and powerful and had some very elegant bits of morphology that facilitated its lifestyle but what would the world that this came and ruled over have looked like well the per source genus existed throughout the majority of demising epoch and therefore would have inhabited the mega wetland systems located in the drainage basins of northern South America that were present during this length of time the ecosystems in his parrot were incredibly diverse with all sorts of other vertebrate fossils known from the same locality representing myriad of animals which populated the vast rivers swamps and Delta's of the region in fact the croc telephone record itself is pretty diverse in these areas throughout the Maya scene meaning purussaurus would have shared its habitat with other smaller caiman species in addition to large aerials and other giant crocodilians and even certain species of fully terrestrial crocodile forms this has actually led to some interesting suggestions as to why ProSource grew to such large body sizes it may have been an example of niche partitioning by becoming the apex predator of the ecosystem and getting to dimensions above any of the other predators of the area this would have enabled adult Perot sources to avoid coming into serious competition for food as the genus have now specialized to feed on bigger more particular prey items unavailable to other species and there are some more characteristics of the teeth that have also been identified as supporting the idea of niche partitioning and purussaurus such as these Caymans possessing relatively quite stout teeth to increase their strength along with the other adaptations I mentioned earlier this would seem to indicate that these reptiles developed an increasingly strengthened dentition which then would have helped them prey on larger vertebrates the different predatory species were not able to these prey items could potentially have included large fish known from the same formations different kinds of pelican form birds giant species of turtles with shells reaching over three metres in length massive extinct rodents which were relatives of today's capybaras and the wide diversity of huge Sanath runs the super order containing sloths armadillos and anteaters as well as the note of ungulates that lived in the same place a uniquely South American order of hoofed mammals that are now completely extinct in fact there appears to be some direct evidence of purussaurus interactions with Turtles as there is a fossil shell from a currently unidentified giant turtle species which displays feeding traces possibly belonging to the caiman since modern crocodilians are very well known to prey on these animals it seems highly likely that large prehistoric Turtles could have made up a significant portion of purussaurus diet and although this is the only direct evidence of feeding habits in the giant came unknown to science so far the adaptations we've talked about and the large body size in addition to the types of contemporaneous animals that share as habitats do indicates that purussaurus was a predator of some large creatures and in order to consume these large creatures per asuras may have quite probably employed the use of the death roll this is a technique observed in living crocodilians in which the animals spin around while biting down on big prey to incapacitate and dismember the unfortunate creatures within their jaws a study from 2014 proposed that since the giant prehistoric attacks of crocodile morphs would have been taking on big body prey items they also would have sometimes needed to perform death rolls the study used a biomechanical model to analyze how the skulls of Deinosuchus sarcosuchus and purussaurus would have functioned under the torsional stresses inflicted by this action finding that while sarcosuchus was probably incapable of using death rolls Deinosuchus and purussaurus were very much capable but no matter how faced on this giant predator was eventually it disappeared from our world so what could have caused such a beast to go extinct well it seems as though the very thing that made Paris are so successful in the first place may actually have brought about his downfall too by growing to such a huge body size and specializing to feed on larger prey the continued existence of this genus would have required some very specific environmental as well as ecological conditions conditions which then eventually changed over time the wetlands in which Paris Oris along with the many other crocodilians mammals fish and turtles lived disappeared during the Pliocene epoch resulting in the extinction of many of the local fauna and a complete shift in the ecosystems these changes and the loss of the unique wetlands were likely due to the increase in the rate and extent of the Andean Mountain building period which resulted in an Amazon River system more like that seen today arising during the end of the my scene and into the Pliocene with power sources position at the top of the food chain in these localities the extinction of the giant came in at the end of the my team EPOC would have had a major effect on the rest of the biodiversity here since all the species in a particular ecosystem are closely connected by the interactions they have with each other and the energy transfer between trophic levels alterations in this network especially at the levels of top predators can have a considerable cascading reaction that affects organisms at every point therefore with the death of Perot Soros the food web eff ruled over would have completely changed possibly resulting in secondary extinctions of other species and a total revision of the entire network it's interesting to be able to work out this much information about past ecological collapses and the powerful effects that the changing climates can have on the biodiversity of the time and the ease with which such effects can wipe out one of the most impressive predators in the history of our planet if you are interested in learning more about such topics as the current climate change and biodiversity crisis were facing I would recommend that you go and subscribe to a channel called warn world this is a channel recently started by my mom who has a PhD in marine biology and is going to be mainly focused on various conservation and environmental issues currently there are videos about the controversial decision by Japan to resume commercial whaling how a planetary diet could help to save our world and part warned of a series about the modern climate change crisis so if you enjoy this sort of content we make here and are passionate about the conservation of our planet I would highly recommend subscribing to the channel I'd also like to thank panda man on discord for recommending we make a video about purussaurus and for helping us find sources about this awesome animal it was a great suggestion well I really hope you enjoyed this video about the giant caiman of the Amazon if you'd like to find out more about her world its history and the wonderful life that surrounds us all please feel free to subscribe to the channel if you think we deserve it and if you would like to see more from us

Channel: Ben G Thomas

Views: 616,344

Rating: 4.9269671 out of 5

Keywords: Biology, Science, Paleontology, Palaeontology, Dinosaurs, Animals, Nature, Wildlife, Ben, Thomas, Prehistory, Anatomy, Fossil, Bones, News, 7Daysofscience, Days, of, caiman, crocodilian, purussaurus, sarcosuchus, deinosuchus, alligator

Id: Qbzlq8m5vY8

Length: 10min 46sec (646 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 18 2019