Tyler Stone / University of Iowa
A new species of crocodile that inhabited a region of Africa more than 3 million years ago has been named “Lucy hunter”.
A now-identified crocodile, given the apt name Crocodylus lucivenator, lived side by side with Lucy’s species in ancient Ethiopia. According to researchers, it may have been the most dangerous predator in the region.
A new one, published on Wednesday in Journal of Systematic Palaeontologydescribes a hitherto unknown species of crocodile, which lived in the same region and in the same period as ours, which left home, and was .
The reptile, named Crocodylus lucivenatorwhich means “lucy hunter”, lived about 3.4 to 3 million yearsin the Hadar region of Ethiopia.
Adults would probably reach between 3.6 and 4.5 meters long and would weigh between 270 and 590 kiloswhich made them the biggest predators in that ecosystem.
“This highlights that the threats did not just come from predatory mammals. We are used to thinking of big cats, hyenas and wild dogs as the main threats. This crocodile was the biggest threat that Lucy and her species faced”, explains the study’s lead author to Discover, Christopher Brochu.
Crocodile fossils from Lucy’s landscape
The fossils that made it possible to identify the “Lucy hunter” were excavated in Hadar Formation, the same region where Lucy’s skeleton was discovered.
During the Pliocene, Hadar had a network of lakes and rivers surrounded by a diversity of habitats that was changing over time. These waterways would have created ideal conditions for ambush predators.
The researchers analyzed 121 fossil remains, including skulls, teeth and jaw fragments, corresponding to dozens of crocodiles. Although many of the fossils were fragmentary, as a whole they provided enough information to reconstruct the anatomy do animal.
For Brochu, the discovery began with a visit to a museum in Addis Ababa in 2016. “Enthusiasm! That’s always what I feel when I see something that could be a new species. It’s like I opened a box that was sealed for centuries”, says Brochu.
At the time, however, the fossils didn’t fit right away in any known group of crocodiles, which led to a more in-depth analysis of other specimens collected in the same region.
A crocodile with an unusual combination of characteristics
Part of the difficulty in classifying the Crocodylus lucivenator resulted from unusual combination of characteristics preserved in the skull.
“For one thing, some of the cranial sutures of the Hadar crocodile resemble those of the extinct group Paleoafrican Crocodylusand so on bony nostril it opens slightly forward, not just upward. But it had a protuberance on its snout normally associated with crocodiles that currently live in the Western Hemisphere,” details Brochu.
This protuberance, in the middle of the crocodile’s snout, is unusual in African fossil crocodiles. In extant species, similar structures are often used as visual cues during matingwhen males lower their heads to display this characteristic in front of potential mates.
O skull also extended further forward nostrils than in Paleo-African crocodiles, another characteristic that brings it closer to current species, including the Nile crocodile.
Signs of fighting between crocodiles
The fossils also preserve evidence of behavior. One of the specimens presents partially healed injuries along the jaw, proof that the animal survived a violent confrontation with another crocodile.
Similar bite marks appear frequently in modern-day crocodiles, which often conflict with each other. territorial disputes or by reproductive competition.
How the wounds healed, the crocodile survived enough time to recover from the confrontation, which suggests that fights between these reptiles would not be uncommon.
For Lucy and her relativeshowever, the most immediate concern may have beenpresence of a powerful predator from ambush on the waterways on which they depended. The same rivers and lakes that supported life in the Hadar region could also have been the hunting territories of the “Lucy hunter”.
