Crocodilian Fossil at the Jurassic Coast
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Crocodilians, thalattosuchians, crocodylomorphs — different words, and the distinctions clutter the discussion. I will stick with crocodilian. Darwin's disciples are excited about a fossil for one of these critters. but it throws off their evolutionary storyline. The tale is that a land animal with four limbs in the Triassic period changed into crocodilians. There was enough of the new discovery available for scientists to identify it and give it a name: Turnersuchus hingleyae . They say it is the only thalattocuchian from its geologic age. Jurassic Coast of England, Flickr / Liam Eldret ( CC BY 2.0 ) There are some interesting speculations about T. hingleyae , including how its skull indicates that it could bite quickly and powerfully. A suggestion was made that it was a live bearer instead of egg layer, but there is no evidence to support this. Evolutionary speculation without evidence? Say it isn't so! Vertebrate fossils of land-dwelling creatures have also been found in ...