Two hundred and thirty million years ago, the first crocodilians evolved from archosaurs or "ruling reptiles" during the mid-Triassic period of the Mesozoic era when primitive dinosaurs also roamed the planet. Crocodiles have changed little in body structure since then. Apart from birds, these reptiles are the only living archosaurs.
In 1909, J.B. Hatcher discovered a few fossilized bits and pieces of a giant alligator in Montana from the late Cretaceous period 80 million years ago. Deinosuchus was also found in Texas by Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History in New York in the 1940s.
The skull of this huge crocodilian is two meters long and body length estimated at about 12 meters with a weight of 8.5 tonnes.
Sarcosuchus was another crocodile some 12 meters long and weighing up to 10 tonnes. Fossils were first found in Central Africa from the early Cretaceous 112 million years ago by French paleontologist Albert-Felix de Lapparent in 1964, and then by France de Broin and Phillip Taquet in 1966. Later in 1997, Paul Sereno discovered more fossils in the sub-Sahara desert and then tagged the beast as "super-croc".
This huge crocodilian was also unearthed in Brazil by a British geologist, and described by Eric Buffetaut and P. Taquet in 1977 as the same species found in Africa. These "super-crocs" pulled dinosaurs and other large animals into the water and devoured them.
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