Dentaneosuchus: The Largest Carnivore of Cenozoic Europe

the recently discovered dentaniosukas was a massive reptilian Predator one that challenges most people's preconceptions of what the world was like after the demise of the non-avian Dinosaurs although it looked like something from the Mesozoic Era dentanio sukis lived a mere 40 million years ago during the age of mammals dentaniosuchus means frightful crocodile a fitting name since it was larger than any terrestrial mammalian Predator before or since the only terrestrial cenozoic predator of comparable size was the fellow reptile Barina sukis who was previously considered the largest terrestrial carnivore of the entire cenozoic era now they share the title dentanio sukis and Barina sukis both belonged to an obscure but fascinating clate of reptiles called sebekosukia the branch of sebekosukia these two giants were a part of sebekide included some of the top predators of cenozoic South America Europe and possibly Africa the closest relatives of the sebekids were the baru sukids who were medium-sized Predators from the southern continents during the end of the Cretaceous Period their closest living relatives are the crocodilians and sabeko sukians belong to the larger clayed crocodile amorpha however unlike some other terrestrial crocodilomorphs such as the Contemporary bovarasukas dentaniosuchus did not have a semi-aquatic ancestor the sebekosukians were instead the last of the notosukians a once diverse clade of fully terrestrial crocodilomorphs even though dentaniosuchus is a recent discovery the holotype was excavated in 1931. hailing from Southern France the bone is a mandibular symphysis the tip of the lower snout new dentaniosuchus fossils were found in France in 1997 including What Might Have Been a nearly complete skull unfortunately it was heavily damaged during excavation and not much besides the lower jaw pre-maxilla and the outline of the top of the skull remains the description of these new fossils was finally published in April of 2023 beforehand the older dentaniosuchus holotype had been assigned to the sebekosukian iberosukis and the implications of its far greater size have been unappreciated the once complete dentaniosuka's skull is nearly one meter long a key difference between it and those of crocodilians is that like the predatory theropods it was much taller crocodilians have evolved flatter skulls since they are more hydrodynamic and create a lower profile when they are preparing to Ambush prey from the water dentaniosuchus is taller skull made it more resilient and allowed it to support additional jaw muscles its nostrils were also different from those of its amphibious relatives being at the end of its rounded snout and facing forwards another difference between dantaniosuchus and crocodilians is their teeth crocodilians have straight conical teeth ideal for grabbing and holding on to their prey while sebekosukians had compressed recurved dagger-like teeth reminiscent of those of the theropod dinosaurs dentenio sukis's teeth are robust compared to other sebekosukians but they are still slightly compressed on the sides like other sebekids it had a long tooth row as opposed to the teeth of the closely related bauru sukids which were restricted to the front of the mouth this giant landcrack also had a large Notch between its maxilla and pre-maxilla it is suspected that like many other crocodilomorphs it accommodated an enlarged tooth in the lower jaw but this cannot be confirmed since most of the corresponding tooth is missing dentaniosuchus is prefrontal Bones jutted out above the eyes creating a distinctive Ridge another notable feature of the skull although it would not have been visible in life was its mandibular fenestra an opening in the lower jaw this opening was typical of crocodilians dinosaurs and other archosaurs but dentaniosuchus's mandibular fenestra was shaped like a boomerang besides the no longer complete skull the rest of the dentaniosuchus fossils consist of a humerus ischium a single vertebra and four osteoderms reconstructing what the rest of its body looked like is difficult since a complete sebeket skeleton has yet to be found however the Reconstruction of dentaniosuchus made in the paper itself doesn't match the anatomy of any other sebekids or anything else but this better reconstruction by Armin reindl uses the namesake sebekid sebekis and the baru sukid stratioto sukis to fill in the gaps of dentaniosuchus's anatomy most notosukians had long straight legs similar to those of dinosaurs and mammals which allowed them to move much more efficiently on land than crocodilians are capable of although dentaniosuchus is humorous largely conforms to those of other notosukians it was particularly robust with numerous muscle insertion sites this would have allowed the gigantic landcrack to quickly run down and overpower its prey in spite of its bulk dentaniosuchus is ischium a type of hip bone also had a complex series of muscle and tendon Insurgent sites it differs substantially not just from those of other sebekids but all other notosukians likely as a result of the evolutionary pressure to support its greater body size like crocodilians dentanio sukis had osteoderms bony structures which grew within its skin the handful of dentaniosuka's osteoderms which have been found come in two types one which is wide and another which is narrow both varieties have a crest it is unclear where they were on its body and no other sebekid osteoderms have been found in articulation either their close relatives the baurus had fewer osteoderms than the majority of other crocodilomorphs so the same may have been true of the later sebekids in any event unlike their portrayal in this image dentanio sukis's osteoderms would not have looked like those of crocodilians a recent study found that notosukin osteoderms were covered by a leathery layer of skin similar to that of soft-shelled turtles which would have increased their flexibility although it was clearly a massive animal without a complete skeleton it is unclear just how large dentaniosuchus was based on comparisons to the baurus stratiotosuchus the similarly sized Barina sukis has been estimated to have been six meters long and to have had a weight of 1600 kilograms this is about the same size as the modern black rhino and the theropod dinosaurs Allosaurus and eutyranus the dentaniosuka's individual known from post-cranial remains reconstructed here by Armin reindl is a bit smaller than the largest Barina Suka specimen but the less complete dentaniosuka's holotype is actually a bit bigger than corresponding fossils of Barina sukis however given the individual variation present within modern species of crocodilians neither dentaniosuchus or Barina sukis are considered larger than the other still sharing the title of largest terrestrial Predator since the non-avian dinosaurs is a very impressive feat the only sebeko sukian of comparable size was raizan Andrew gobe a dinosaur killer who lived in Madagascar during the middle Jurassic although such dinosaurs were long gone the giant sebekids evolved during the middle eocene when mammals were just starting to become massive likely prey of dentaniosuchus included the taper-like herbivore lafiodon lautrasensi who is estimated to have weighed over two tons the paper which described dentanio sukis suggested both it and Barina sukis were a mere three to four meters long significantly smaller than has usually been accepted there have been cases where the sizes of extinct crocodilomorphs were initially overestimated for instance the gaviolid ramphosuchus was once estimated to have been a staggering 18 meters long but is now thought to have only been 10 meters long it is also true that large Predators sometimes have proportionally larger skulls than their smaller relatives so it makes sense that dantaniosuchus was not quite as large as a scaled up stratioto sukis however the estimate of three to four meters doesn't seem to have been based on dantaniosuka's meager postcranial material indeed not only did the paper not provide any evidence to support this drastically lower estimate but it is questionable whether it was even biologically possible the lower estimate of 3 meters is about the size of sebekids with skulls less than half the length of dantaniosuchuses this might make some sense if the skull was highly elongated like those of spinosaurids but this does not seem to be the case for dentaniosuchus and is certainly not true of Barina sukis likewise the dentaniosuchus postcranial material is far larger than that of sebekids in the three meter range furthermore a total length of 3 meters would require their meter long skulls to be a ludicrous 50 percent of the length of the rest of their bodies the upper estimate of 4 meters still Beggars belief since even the famously huge heads of the Triassic erythrocids were not so disproportionate to their bodies a length of 6 meters is an exceptional size for a cenozoic carnivore but that is no reason to assume it was instead even more extreme than the bobble-headed erythrosuchids indeed estimating its size from a baru sucat is fairly conservative the theropod dinosaur despiteosaurus also had a robust meter long skull and it was eight to nine meters long with all of this taken into account the previous estimate of 6 meters is a lot more reasonable than four let alone three two other sebekids have been found in cenozoic Europe burgosuchus and the previously mentioned iberosukas the phylogenetic analysis in the paper which described dentaniosuchus did not find it to be closely related to these species nor to Barina sukis instead it was found to be the earliest diverging sebekid given the incomplete nature of dentaniosuchus and its relatives these results are only tentative but if true then it may have had similarities to the baru sukids that were lost and more derived sebekids it was once assumed that sebecca day first evolved in South America which is where fossils of them and their closest relatives are the most common however the discovery of dantaniosukas has brought about the suggestion that they may have originally evolved in Europe supporting this hypothesis the oldest unambiguous sebekid ogre sucas lived there not in South America South America was geographically isolated from the rest of the world throughout most of the cenozoic era but ogorsukus dates to the late Cretaceous a time when Europe was home to animals otherwise restricted to either the Northern or Southern continents in the case of the sebekids Africa may have been able to serve as a bridge between Europe and South America although fragmentary there are fossils of an African cenozoic sebekosukian named arimo sukis alternatively sebekide could have simply originated in Africa and from there independently spread to Europe and South America proving this hypothesis will be difficult due to the current Rarity of African fossils dating to the end of the Cretaceous Period dentaniosuchus may have been the deadliest predator in Europe since the dinosaurs but it seems to have also been the last European sebekid after the bartonian age and the start of the late eocene mammals finally took over as the top predators of the continent dentanio sukus's Extinction has been linked to a period of global cooling during the middle eocene a Time hosts to a drastic reduction in crocodilomorph diversity although this period of climate change was devastating for many of the Contemporary mammals large reptiles like the notosukians were particularly vulnerable they had ectothermic metabolisms and just as they had thrived in the warm climates of the paleocene and early eocene they were unsuited for the cooler environments which replaced them sebekids continued to thrive in South America which remained warm due to its proximity to the equator although Barina sukis evolved around the same time as dentaniosuchus it persisted until 12 million years ago during the Middle myocene while dantaniosukas seems to have been the last of the European sebekids as one of the largest terrestrial predators in the last 66 million years it ensured their story ended on a high note many reptiles thrived during the early cenozoic but like Barina sukis dentaniosukas managed to outdo the mammals after they had already replaced the dinosaurs with the discovery of these two remarkable reptiles the age of mammals will never be looked at the same way again thank you for watching and a thank you to the Mandalorian for narrating this video if you enjoyed it please remember to hit the like button and subscribe if you'd like to see more finally be sure to have a great day

Channel: CHimerasuchus

Views: 127,137

Keywords: Fossil, Dinosaur, Paleontology, Prehistoric, Prehistory, Reptile, Archosaur, Dinosaurs, Archosaurs, Reptiles, Crocodiles, Crocodile, Crocodilian, Crocodilians, Crocodylomorphs, Crocodylomorpha, Crocodylomorph, Mesozoic, Science, Dentaneosuchus, Notosuchia, Notosuchians, Notosuchian, Barinasuchus, Razanandrongobe, Daspletosaurus, Ogresuchus, baurusuchid, baurusuchids, sebecid, sebecids, Sebecidae, Sebecosuchia, Sebecosuchian, Carnivore, Predator, Eocene, Cenozoic, Europe, France, erythrosuchids, Stratiotosuchus, Iberosuchus, Lophiodon

Id: M_NCdl6AgEk

Length: 13min 30sec (810 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 01 2023