Scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery — the fossil remains of a giant crocodile that once ruled ancient coastlines. Far larger than any modern species, this prehistoric predator was among the most fearsome hunters of its era, capable of taking down almost anything that crossed its path. In this video, we explore how scientists uncovered this ancient creature, what sets it apart from today’s reptiles, and how the find reveals new clues about prehistoric sea life. Join us as we dive into the story behind this remarkable fossil and what it tells us about Earth’s forgotten giants. Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/: Sebecus icaeorhinus: By Smokeybjb, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20754596 Simosuchus: By CaptMondo, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20516007 CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0: Langstonia skeletal: By LiterallyMiguel, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=172597210 Animation is created by Bright Side.
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00:00This is Low Long, the largest crocodile ever found, stretching about 20 feet long.
00:07Now, imagine living in a world full of Low Longs, only with longer legs and the ability to run on land like a greyhound.
00:15It sounds like a nightmare monster, but she was real.
00:19Fossils of giant crocodile-like creatures were discovered back in the 1930s.
00:23And now, scientists have found that these beasts, once roamed and dominated, lands far bigger than they imagined.
00:31We're talking about the Cebacids.
00:33They're a family of prehistoric crocodiles that once ruled South America, especially in what is now Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia.
00:41And scientists discovered that these ancient predators were huge!
00:45Some species may have grown up to 20 feet long.
00:48Now, to give you an idea of how big that is, well, that would be you.
00:52And that would be her.
00:55Yeah, good luck outrunning that.
00:57Oh, by the way, they wouldn't be slithering in the water.
00:59They'd be walking right beside you.
01:02And that's actually the biggest difference between them and their crocodile relatives.
01:06Most Cebacid species lived entirely on land.
01:09They were like lions.
01:11Powerful, moving on all fours, but with tough crocodile-like skin.
01:15That image alone is already terrifying.
01:17But it gets worse when you figure these guys were fierce predators and we could have easily ended up as part of their dinner.
01:25Everything about them was perfectly built for the chase.
01:28They had narrow, dinosaur-like skulls and long legs that helped them sprint after their prey.
01:34They especially liked sloths and rodents.
01:36But, honestly, with those sharp, saw-like teeth, well, anything that crossed their path didn't stand much of a chance.
01:44And if one of their victims tried to fight back, well, that would have been a big mistake.
01:49Most of these crocodile ancestor species had tough, bony plates under their skin that worked like natural armor.
01:56They were seriously tough.
01:58But don't worry, you don't have to fear them.
02:01Luckily, for us at least, these beasts aren't roaming the Earth anymore.
02:04According to Jonathan Block, a paleontologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History,
02:10these mysterious predators may have been the last of the Notosussians,
02:14a broad group of reptiles that first appeared back in the Jurassic period.
02:19Yep, these bad boys shared the planet with dinosaurs.
02:23That is, until the asteroid hit the Earth about 66 million years ago.
02:27Dinosaurs went kaput, and mammals took over.
02:30They became the land animals, but their path to the top wasn't exactly smooth.
02:35They still had to deal with the cebacids in South America.
02:39That's right, those tough, crocodile-like predators actually survived the asteroid disaster.
02:45They also ruled and stayed at the top of the food chain until around 11 million years ago.
02:50Or at least that's what scientists thought.
02:52Until they started finding strange, fossilized teeth in the Caribbean.
02:57Uh-oh.
02:58Let's go back about 30 years, when researchers uncovered two roughly 18-million-year-old teeth in Cuba.
03:06They had a tapered shape and tiny, sharp serrations, perfectly designed for tearing into meat.
03:12There was no mistake.
03:13Scientists were looking at something that belonged to a top predator.
03:17But the question was, who?
03:19Had they found a fossil of an ancient giant croc?
03:23Well, maybe.
03:24Those teeth could have been from a species of cebacid.
03:27But that was strange, since scientists didn't think such large ancient predators ever lived in the Caribbean.
03:34And things got even stranger when another tooth turned up in Puerto Rico.
03:39This one even older, about 29 million years old.
03:42But there was a problem.
03:44Those teeth alone weren't enough to identify a specific animal.
03:47They needed more.
03:49So the mystery remained unsolved.
03:53Everything changed in 2023.
03:56Local work crews were building a road in the Dominican Republic when they suddenly stumbled upon ancient bones.
04:03Researchers soon realized they were looking at a fossilized tooth.
04:07But this time, it came with two vertebrae.
04:09That was a big deal.
04:11Because it's really hard to tell ancient crocodile species apart just from their teeth.
04:16But with those two vertebrae, things were different.
04:20Crocodile relatives with serrated teeth usually had ball and socket joints between their vertebrae.
04:25But in cebacids, that part of the spine was flat.
04:29So that made all the difference.
04:31It was enough to confirm that the fossil from the Dominican Republic belonged to a cebacid.
04:36And just like that, scientists discovered that this ancient predator really did live in the Caribbean.
04:43And even more surprising, they found out it was roaming around at least 5 million years
04:48before cebacids were thought to have disappeared everywhere else.
04:52Okay, but why is finding their fossils in the Caribbean such a big deal?
04:57Or better yet, why were scientists so sure before this discovery that they didn't live there?
05:02Well, that's because this prehistoric reptile didn't like the sea.
05:07Let me explain.
05:08The Caribbean is a region in the Americas made up of islands and the surrounding coastal areas.
05:14That meant for a land-loving ancient crocodile to travel from, say, Colombia to the Dominican Republic,
05:20it would have had to swim.
05:22And I mean really swim.
05:24We're talking over 350 miles of open ocean with strong currents and rough waves.
05:30You can see why that would have been a serious challenge for a land-based cebacid to cross, right?
05:35So, that's why scientists thought these prehistoric crocodiles could never have lived in the Caribbean.
05:41But now that researchers are finding their fossils there, they may have to find an explanation.
05:47And that is where this discovery becomes even more interesting, as it actually supports the Garlandia hypothesis.
05:54This idea first appeared in 1994.
05:58It suggests that millions of years ago, the movement of Earth's tectonic plates caused a stretch of land, now mostly underwater, to rise up in the Caribbean.
06:08This land, called the Aves Ridge, may have connected South America all the way to Puerto Rico, and then to other Caribbean islands, like Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica.
06:19So basically, it worked like a temporary chain of land bridges, a kind of natural highway that once allowed animals to go from South America to the Caribbean.
06:28Mammals, amphibians, and reptiles could actually walk right across instead of taking their chances at sea.
06:35The Garlandia hypothesis definitely sounds fascinating, but it's still up for debate.
06:41It hasn't been fully accepted by scientists yet, even though plenty of studies since the 90s seem to back it up.
06:47And this new discovery of a giant crocodile-like creature in the Dominican Republic could be one more important clue pointing in that direction.
06:57It's possible that many of the places where these civisids once thrived started to disappear as the global climate cooled.
07:05Bit by bit, some of them were pushed into warmer tropical areas, until, eventually, the only places left for them to live were the Caribbean islands.
07:14This discovery lines up with something else that ecologists have observed around the world.
07:20Islands can act like museums of biodiversity, in the sense that they offer a safe place where plants and animals can keep surviving long after their relatives on the mainland have disappeared.
07:32In the case of civisids, the difference is striking.
07:35The most recent fossils found in South America date back between 10 and 12 million years ago.
07:41But the tooth and vertebrae found in the Dominican Republic are much younger, only about 4.5 million years old.
07:49That means this island might have been the last place these giant reptiles called home.
07:54And if those serrated teeth found on other Caribbean islands also turned out to belong to civisids, that would be huge.
08:02That would mean that these ancient crocodile-like creatures didn't just live in the Dominican Republic.
08:07They were spread across the Caribbean.
08:10And who knows, maybe we'll still find more of its fossils in places like Puerto Rico, Haiti, and Jamaica.
08:17Although the tropics are among the most biodiverse places on Earth, much of their natural history remains a mystery.
08:24Discovering a giant ancient crocodile in the Caribbean is a reminder that the world we live in today is just one chapter of Earth's long, ever-changing history.
08:33And who knows, what other prehistoric crocodiles or ancient creatures are still waiting to be found beneath our feet.
08:45That's it for today.
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