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Ichingcarpenter

(36,988 posts)
Fri Feb 3, 2012, 07:16 AM Feb 2012

Armadillo-like Crocodile

It was 6.6 feet (2 meters) long, weighed about 265 pounds (120 kilograms), and had a relatively wide head with a narrow, toothy snout.

Body armor has never been "found in any other fossil or living crocodile species," Ismar de Souza Carvalho, a paleontologist at the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro,





http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090708-armadillo-crocodile-brazil.html


The armor looks star wars like.

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Armadillo-like Crocodile (Original Post) Ichingcarpenter Feb 2012 OP
... xchrom Feb 2012 #1
uh! Fido, come back in now! wyldwolf Feb 2012 #2
Or maybe a crocodile-like armadillo precursor? Yo_Mama Feb 2012 #3
Stunning case of convergent evolution ... eppur_se_muova Feb 2012 #4
It just needs a saddle Tyrs WolfDaemon Feb 2012 #5

Yo_Mama

(8,303 posts)
3. Or maybe a crocodile-like armadillo precursor?
Fri Feb 3, 2012, 01:34 PM
Feb 2012

That looks more like a glyptodon evolving toward a croc diet than a crocodilian evolving toward an armadillo. Look at those feet, and look at what seems to be the remnants of a glyptodon-type crest on that skull:


There are legitimate questions about the current theory of armadillo ancestry:
http://www.macroevolution.net/pangolins.html#.TywUSYHpiSo

If you accept that armadillos might have evolved from ankylosaurs, then this fossil makes more sense.

Then you have simosuchus and chimaerasuchus, so the turtle-snouted crocodilians exist too.

Tyrs WolfDaemon

(2,289 posts)
5. It just needs a saddle
Fri Feb 3, 2012, 07:27 PM
Feb 2012

That would make for one hell of a mount. Can you imagine a Viking charging in from the ships on shore on one of these?! We would have conquered the world!

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