Koolasuchus
| Koolasuchus | ||||||||||||
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Koolasuchus in a living reconstruction |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Aptium ( Upper Cretaceous ) | ||||||||||||
| 125.45 to 112.6 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Koolasuchus | ||||||||||||
| Warren et al. , 1987 | ||||||||||||
| Art | ||||||||||||
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Koolasuchus ( Greek "Kools crocodile") is a genus of the extinct Temnospondyli from the Upper Cretaceous of Australia. He is the last known representative of this species-rich and worldwide group, the most recent fossil record of which is 112.6 million years old. The only scientifically known species is Koolasuchus cleelandi . The type NMV P186213 comes from the type locality Rowells Beach, which belongs to the Eumeralla Formation and is characterized by sandstone that was formed from freshwater deposits.
Koolasuchus reached a total length of about five meters. The head was flat and about half a meter long, so it was very large in relation to the rest of the slim body. The eyes were on the top of the head. His legs were poorly developed, so he could not move easily on land. The large, crooked teeth suggest that Koolasuchus was a carnivore. The first fossils were discovered in 1989 in South Australia at the " Dinosaur Cove " site .
His appearance in the successful documentary series Dinosaurier - Im Reich der Gianten ( English Walking with Dinosaurs ) made him known to a larger group of people.
literature
- Anne Warren, Tom M. Rich, Patricia V. Vickers-Rich (1997): The last last labyrinthodont? In: Palaeontographica Department A 247: 1-24 Abstract
- Tim Haines , Paul Chambers: The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life , BBC Limited 2005, ISBN 0-563-52219-4
Individual evidence
- ^ Robert L. Carroll (2009): The rise of amphibians - 365 million years of evolution . Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. ISBN 0-8018-9140-X