RE: UNtame crocs - how can you finish your thesis dodging these guys?

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>]

> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] 
> On Behalf Of B tH
>
> 
> Amazing animals.
> Were there almost-identical species to the salt-water croc at 
> the time just before the KT?  What are the odds they could be 
> the same genus? 

Chris "Master of the Crocodylia" Brochu had an excellent review of the
crown-group crocs in:
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.31.100901.
141308

In that paper, he shows the fossil record of Indo-Pacific crocs extending
only back the base of the Pliocene, and Crocodylus itself only to the early
Miocene. Taxa like Borealosuchus were present in the latest Maastrichtian:
at a rough glance, they are roughly "Crocodylus"-like (but the devil is in
the details, and they are not closely related phylogenetically to modern
Crocodylus in the larger context of eusuchians).

> By the way, to our Oz friends, why did they name it "alligator" river?

My guess is the same reason that Darwin talked about the "ostrichs" of South
America: refining the common names of various species hadn't occurred during
the 19th Century.


Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu   Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216                        
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661               

Faculty Director, Earth, Life & Time Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite/
Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742 USA