Paleontologists searching far and wide in Tunisia made a discovery of massive proportions: the world’s largest sea-dwelling crocodile, previously unknown to science, The Washington Post newspaper reports.This prehistoric crocodile is believed to have measured more than 30 feet long and weighed three tons. The skull alone is more than five feet long.Researchers reportedly named the new species the Machimosaurus rex and described their findings this week in the journal Cretaceous Research.”Massive” is how lead author Federico Fanti of the University of Bologna described the crocodile. “It’s just big. It’s almost the size of a bus.”He added: “It definitely was at the top of the food chain at the time, at least in this particular locality.”
The Washington Post wrote, Fanti and his team, supported by National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration, found the fossils buried below just a few inches of sediment on the edge of the Sahara Desert in Tunisia, a country rich with fossils.”This one was a big surprise, not because we found fossils, but we found beautiful ones,” Fanti said. The skull took two days to uncover, and the “rest of the body was just lying there.”
