A (thankfully) extinct crocodillian
Description:Trilophosuchus rackhami is a member of an extinct group of crocodiles.
Crocodillians are probably some of the scariest ambush predators in the world, they are very efficient killers and have had the same basic body plan and hunting strategy for hundreds of millions of years. Fortunately all living are aquatic, and avoiding them is a simple matter of avoiding the water in which they live. Image, however that there was a crocodillian that lived in trees. Certain aspects of the skeleton of Trilophosuchus rackhami indicate that it was terrestrial, and possibly even arboreal, all though not all paleontologists agree. Walking through a dark forest would be a lot more scary if there were crocodiles in the trees waiting to spring out and ambush you on the ground.
Distribution:
Trilophosuchus rackhami is only known from the Riversleigh deposits in North Queensland and are Miocene in age.
Classification:
Trilophosuchus rackhami is the only member described in the genus Trilophosuchus.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Order: Crocodilia
Family: Crocodilidae
Genus: Trilophosuchus
Species: Trilophosuchus rackhami
Image Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilophosuchus
No comments:
Post a Comment