Unlike modern crocodiles, which mostly lurk in rivers and swamps, mekosuchines were an extraordinarily diverse and adaptable group. They filled ecological roles unlike any reptiles alive today. Some species were small and land-dwelling, while others may have hunted in forests rather than waterways.
UNSW paleontologist Professor Michael Archer describes them with a kind of gleeful disbelief. “It’s a bizarre idea,” he says, “but some of them appear to have been terrestrial hunters in the forests.”
Even more astonishing are the “drop crocs”—semi-arboreal species that, according to fossil evidence, may have climbed trees and leapt down on unsuspecting prey below. Archer likens them to reptilian leopards. “They were perhaps hunting like big cats—dropping out of trees on any unsuspecting thing they fancied for dinner,” he says.
Such behavior challenges our assumptions about crocodiles, painting a picture of ancient ecosystems filled with agile, cunning predators unlike anything in Australia today.
Illustration from Science News
