About 45 million years ago, Cairo did not look as we know it today, because large areas of northern Egypt were covered by warm, shallow sea waters. Among the fish that lived in that environment was a long-snout crocodile swimming in search of its prey. Later, its skull turned into a fossil that remained for nearly a century bearing a scientific name that did not reflect its true position on the evolutionary tree of crocodiles.
Hot Topics
66-million-year-old evidence reveals when the catastrophe that wiped out the dinosaurs occurred
the Egyptian Salam-Lab team, re-examined this Egyptian fossil, which had been known since its description in 1927 as "Tomstoma chirins," and concluded that it represents a different genus, which the researchers named "Hierogavialis chirins," after anatomical comparisons and tomography revealed clear differences between it and the "Malaysian false gharial" that lives today in Southeast Asia.
The new scientific name “Hero” bears a direct reference to Egypt; the researchers derived the first part of the name from the name of the Egyptian god Horus, who in some interpretations was associated with the Sphinx in Giza.
This choice was not merely symbolic, as the Sphinx was carved from the rocks of the Mokattam Formation, the same geological formation in which the fossil of this ancient crocodile was found. Researchers also point out an interesting paradox: both the Sphinx and the crocodile lack the front part of the nose or snout.
According to Paul, fossils show that Egypt was home to this group when sea levels were much higher than they are today, explaining that the country hosted at least five species of gharials during the period roughly between 66 million and 6 million years ago, at a time when these animals were more widespread globally and sometimes lived in shallow marine environments.
The skull and associated specimens were found in the Mokattam Mountain east of Cairo, within the Mokattam Formation, a marine limestone formation dating back to the Middle Eocene epoch. The skull reveals an animal with a long, narrow snout, representing about 64% of its head length—a structure that may have helped it catch fish quickly in shallow waters.
The researcher paints a different picture of Cairo at that time, saying that “most of the coast of Egypt and Cairo was covered by a shallow sea,” while the carbonate deposits in the Mokattam Formation indicate a warm climate, and numerous fossils of cartilaginous and bony fish were found in the same layers, which are likely to have been part of this crocodile’s diet.
Tags:
science