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Jouve and colleagues suggested in 2008 that juvenile marine crocodyliforms lived in freshwater environments as do modern marine crocodile juveniles, which would have helped them survive where other marine reptiles became extinct; freshwater environments were not so strongly affected by the K–Pg extinction event as marine environments were. [119]
The genus was one of the first Mesozoic marine reptiles known to science—the first fossils of Mosasaurus were found as skulls in a chalk quarry near the Dutch city of Maastricht in the late 18th century, and were initially thought to be crocodiles or whales. One skull discovered around 1780 was famously nicknamed the "great animal of Maastricht".
After it had been earlier interpreted as a fish, a crocodile, and a sperm whale, the first to understand its lizard affinities was the Dutch scientist Adriaan Gilles Camper in 1799. In 1808, Georges Cuvier confirmed this conclusion, although le Grand Animal fossile de Maëstricht was not actually named Mosasaurus (' Meuse reptile') until 1822 ...
Crocodylomorpha in the modern sense, as defined by Paul Sereno in 2005, is phylogenetically defined as the most inclusive clade containing Crocodylus niloticus (the Nile crocodile), but not Rauisuchus tiradentes, Poposaurus gracilis, Gracilisuchus stipanicicorum, Prestosuchus chiniquensis, or Aetosaurus ferratus.
An early analysis of a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu suggests that the space rock had an unexpectedly water-rich past — and it may have even splintered off from an ancient ocean world.
D'Hondt and others argued that an asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous would not have produced enough acid for acid rain to be a significant factor contributing to the mass extinction. [ 56 ] Weil argued that the hypothesis of acid rain occurring in the wake of an asteroid impact contributing the Cretaceous–Tertiary mass extinction ...
Crocodile attacks on people worldwide are much more common than attacks by alligators in the United States. However, just in case, here’s some sage advice if you happen upon a gator.
Only 1,500 to 2,000 adult crocodiles survive in southern Florida’s brackish swamps, so seeing one on a public beach is highly unusual, according to the South Florida Wildlands Association.