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Miami Herald
05-05-2025
- Science
- Miami Herald
‘Strange' fossilized teeth found in Caribbean. It's a ‘giant' prehistoric species
A mystery has been building in the Caribbean. Decades ago, fossilized teeth were discovered in Cuba dating to about 18 million years ago. They were small but tapered, sharp and serrated. They were the teeth of an apex predator. Researchers didn't believe there was such an animal in the Caribbean, until they found another tooth in Puerto Rico, this time 29 million years old, according to an April 30 news release from the Florida Museum of Natural History. Still, the teeth alone weren't enough to identify the prehistoric species. Then, along a road in the Dominican Republic in 2023, paleontologists unearthed not only another tooth, but vertebrae to match, the museum said. They had an identity. It was a crocodile-like reptile 'built like a greyhound' and sometimes reaching 20 feet long — a sebecid. Not only did the Caribbean house these 'giant' predators after all, but the animals were living there millions of years after their extinction everywhere else, the museum said. Researchers described the findings and what it might mean in a study published April 30 in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The cervical vertebrae and teeth were found in an embankment along the Juan Pablo II highway when roadcuts revealed sediment from the late Miocene and early Pliocene epochs, according to the study. 'Outcrops don't last too long, so you go there when you can. When they're cutting the road or a few months after that, you find the fossils. If you're looking in a few years, it will be gone,' Lázaro W. Viñola López, a former graduate student at the University of Florida and lead author on the study, said in the release. 'That emotion of finding the fossil and realizing what it is, it's indescribable,' he said. Sebecids belonged to a group of prehistoric crocodilians called Notosuchia, a group that was all but wiped out 66 million years ago, according to the museum. With dinosaurs out of the way, sebecids thrived in South America as the new apex predator, able to move quickly on land and use their teeth to rip apart their prey, the museum said. Sebecids likely wouldn't have been able to swim from mainland South America to the Caribbean islands, researchers said in the study, suggesting the landmasses were once connected by some kind of land bridge millions of years ago. There could have also been a chain of smaller islands, making the swimming distance more manageable, for the sebecids to survive in the Caribbean, the museum said. This idea is called the GAARlandia hypothesis and suggests these connections were present about 34 million years ago. 'You wouldn't have been able to predict this looking at the modern ecosystem,' Jonathan Bloch, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History and co-author on the study, said in the release. 'The presence of a large predator is really different than we imagined before, and it's exciting to think about what might be discovered next in the Caribbean fossil record as we explore further back in time.' The new fossils were found in Sabana Grande De Boya in central Dominican Republic, an island nation in the eastern Caribbean. The research team includes Viñola López, Bloch, Jorge Velez-Juarbe, Philippe Münch, Juan N. Almonte Milan, Pierre-Olivier Antoine, Laurent Marivaux and Osvaldo Jimenez-Vasquez.
Time of India
30-04-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Fossil of a prehistoric land crocodile, which grew up to 20 feet in length, found in the Caribbean
Think of a giant crocodile, almost built like a greyhound. It is so tall that some species could even be 20 feet in length. That's sebecid. They ruled the South American landscape after the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. It was believed that they all died out around 11 million years ago. However, paleontologists have now found fossil evidence that shows that these fearsome creatures also lived in the Caribbean, years after they were thought to have vanished. The findings of the new study is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B .The study's lead author, Lazaro Viñola Lopez, who conducted the research as a graduate student at the University of Florida, said that he knew his team members had come upon something exceptional when they unearthed the fossils. 'That emotion of finding the fossil and realizing what it is, it's indescribable,' he said in a statement. Illustration by Jorge Machuky 'The first question that we had when these teeth were found in the Dominican Republic and on other islands in the Caribbean was: What are they?' Jonathan Bloch, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said. Previously, paleontologists had discovered sebecid -like teeth in Cuba and Puerto Rico, one set dating back 18 million years, another 29 million years. The tapered shapes and fine serrations on the teeth hinted that they belonged to top predators. However, until now, the lack of skeletal remains has made it difficult for researchers to conclude. That changed in early 2023, when a research team unearthed a fourth fossilized tooth and two vertebrae in the Dominican Republic. The fossils belonged to a sebecid and hinted that the Caribbean was a haven for these large terrestrial predators for at least 5 million years after they disappeared from other parts of the world. representational img These giant creatures were the last surviving members of the Notosuchia, a large and diverse group of extinct crocodilians with a fossil record that extends back into the age of dinosaurs. They vary in size, diet, and habitat, and were notably different from their crocodile relatives. How different? Well, most of the sebecids lived entirely on land! Similar to carnivorous dinosaurs, sebecids sprinted after prey on their four long, agile limbs and tore through flesh with their notorious teeth. Built like a greyhound, with some even reaching 20 feet in length, they had protective armor made of bony plates embedded in their skin. The mass extinction that took place 66 million years ago, which wiped out nonavian dinosaurs, nearly destroyed notosuchians as well. In South America, only the sebecids endured, and with the dinosaurs gone, they quickly rose to be the top predator. Representative img According to a hypothesis theory by the team, a pathway of temporary land bridges or a chain of islands once allowed land animals to travel from South America to the Caribbean. If, as the scientists think, the serrated teeth found on other Caribbean islands also came from sebecids, it means these giant reptiles once lived across the region for millions of years. Today, they're gone, and smaller predators like birds, snakes, and crocodiles have taken their place. 'You wouldn't have been able to predict this looking at the modern ecosystem. The presence of a large predator is really different than we imagined before, and it's exciting to think about what might be discovered next in the Caribbean fossil record as we explore further back in time,' Bloch said. 100 Days Of Trump: Tariff Tyranny, Zelensky Bashing, Iran Nuclear Threat | 3 Shocking Speeches 'The sebecid is only the tip of the iceberg,' Viñola-Lopez concludes.
