Paleoart: Super Croc Ambush

Raul Martin is a well known paleoartist, creating some true masterpieces over the years, I've chosen this one because it shows two key concepts that I will discuss on this post.

This scene depicts a confrontation between two African giants. Two different animals sharing the same lifestyle. The first concept I like about this is the fact that dinosaurs, even large predators such as Suchomimus tenerensis, are threatened by crocodiles that elsewhere is the world are subdued by the dinosaurs, with the exception of Deinosuchus at the end of the Cretaceous period. As the spinosaur is believed to have primarily fed on fish these two massive predators would have come in to regular contact, making confrontations frequent. Sarcosuchus imperator would have posed a genuine threat to even the biggest of African dinosaurs, with the stealth of modern crocodiles and massive, powerful jaws, the odds of surviving would be very little. This shows that in some places around the world, the dinosaurs did not have absolute rule over their territory.

Secondly, we are seeing an ecological struggle. Suchomimus has evolved to feed on fish, a niche that few other theropod dinosaurs had filled. However, this created competition with the aquatic predators such as Sarcosuchus. So despite escaping competition with other dinosaurs, Suchomimus is no better off as the super croc has grown to titanic proportions in order to reign supreme over the waterways of Africa.

To summarise, the most important thing to take from this is that the dinosaurs were not always at the top of the food chain and that even the largest most specialised theropods could become prey.