Crocodile ancestors survived two massive extinctions – How’s How’s

Staring at a crocodile or alligator may make sense to look back in history at the age of the dinosaurs. Their ancestors have survived two massive extinctions for 230 million years and scientists have discovered a new secret for their evolutionary success and a long service life. The prehistoric relics are remarkably flexible in both what they eat and where they get it. The findings are described in a Study published on April 16 in the magazine Palaeontology.

Nevertheless, the Crocodylians remained

In its history of 4.5 billion years, the Earth has undergone five massive extinctions and we are potentially in a sixth era of mass death. The current Crocodylians are the surviving members of one origin called crocodylomorphen. This origin is approximately 230 million years old and includes modern crocodiles, alligators and gharhartats and their many extinct family members.

“Many groups that are closely related to Crocodylians were more diverse, more abundant and showed different ecologies, but they all disappeared apart from this few generalist Crocodylians who are alive today,” Keegan Melstrom, a study co-author and paleontologist at the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO), said in a statement. “Development and survival are two sides of the same currency. By all the massive extinctions, some groups manage to continue to exist and too diversify. What can we learn by studying the deeper evolutionary patterns that are administered by these events?”

Living Crocodylians are semi-aquatic generalists who thrive in spaces such as lakes, rivers and swamps, where they patiently wait to lure unsuspecting prey into an ambush. They are the opposite of picky eaters. Young Crocodylians will do that to eat Tad poles, shellfish or insects before graduating on fish, baby deer and even other crocs.

Determining the properties that increase survival during more stable periods and times of planetary unrest can help scientists and conservationists to protect the most vulnerable species of today. Mammals are usually considered the best group to use to study the survival of massive extinction, because we have a generalist diet with which we can thrive in different habitats. However, the Crocodylomorphen are ignored despite their survival skills.

‘Then it goes bananas’

Herein New studyThe team reconstructed the nutritional ecology of Crocodylomorphen to identify characteristics that helped some groups to keep track of and thrive through two mass extensions. Crocodylomorphen survived both the Eind-Triassic Mass Extinction (about 201.4 million years ago) and the end of the end of the clet-like mass (about 66 million years ago), killing all non-Avian dinosaurus species.

“There is a danger to try to draw conclusions from millions of years ago and to apply it directly to preservation. We must be careful”, co-author Randy Irmis, curator of Paleontology in the Natural History Museum of Utah and a professor at the University of Utah, said in a statement. “If people study mammals and reptiles and find the same patterns with regard to the survival of extinction, then we can predict that species with a generalist diet can do better. That information helps us to make predictions, but it is unlikely that we can ever choose which individual species will survive.”

[ Related: Say hello to the surprising crocodile relative Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis.]

During the late Triassic period (approximately 237 to 201.4 million years ago), a broader evolutionary group that includes early crocodylomorphen and many other extinct lines, called Pseudosuchia ruled the country. The earliest Crocodylomorphen were small to medium -sized size and were somewhat rare in their ecosystems. It was carnivores that usually ate small animals. For comparison: other pseudosuchic groups dominated on land, had a broader range of ecological roles and were diverse in both body shape and size.

As soon as the end-trias strangled, no non-crocodylomorph PseudoDosuchians survived despite being so dominant. The more hyper-carnivore crocodylomorphen also seemed to die. The land -living generalists survived. The team assumes that this ability to eat almost everything was behind their success, while so many other groups die out.

“Then it goes bananas,” said Melstrom. “Aquatic hypercarnivores, terrestrial generalists, terrestrial hypercarnivores, terrestrial herbivores – Crocodylomorphen developed a huge number of ecological roles during the time of the dinosaurs.”

However, something happened during the late chalk period, causing the Crocodylymorph figures to fall. The lines with more diverse ecologies started to disappear, even the terrestrial generalists. Due to the end of the Creataceous Mass Extinction event, most survivors were the Semiaquatic Generalists and a group of aquatic carnivores. Almost all 26 Crocodylians today are Semiaquatic Generalists.

Teeth tell the story

To find out what these Lang-Go-Gone reptiles were probably eating, the team analyzed the form of fossilized teeth and skulls. For example, a jaw with small mesic teeth indicates that an organism was probably cutting meat and pierced. A more Mortier-en-Pestle-like mouth indicates that an animal probably broken down more plant tissue. The skull shape also shows how an animal moves its mouth and offers an indication of eating habits.

They studied the skulls of 99 Extinct Crocodylomorph -species and 20 Living Crocodylian speciesTo make a fossil data set that spans 230 million years of evolutionary history. They compared it with a previously built database of living non-crocodyylians, including 89 mammals and 47 lizards.

As semiaquatic ambiguous predators, contemporary Crocodylians mainly fulfill comparable ecological roles in a wide range of environments. They also have remarkably flexible diets, which could be a remnant of their deeply diverse evolutionary past.

For critically endangered Crocodylians such as the Gharial of the foothills of the Himalayas or the Cuban crocodileNutrition flexibility can give them a chance to continue to exist in today’s ecological struggles caused by climate change. The primary challenges for these endangered species are hunting for people and losses of habitats.

“When we see living crocodiles and alligators, instead of thinking of wild animals or expensive handbags, I hope that people appreciate their amazing 200+ million years of evolution, and how they survived so many tumultuous events in the history of the earth,” Irmis said. “Crocodylians are equipped to survive many future changes – if we are willing to retain their habitats.”

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