Sebecids were the last making it through members of Notosuchia, a big and varied group of extinct crocodilians with a fossil record that extends back into the age of dinosaurs.

They represented a large range in size, diet plan and environment and were especially various from their crocodile loved ones, as the majority of them lived completely on land.

Sebecids imitated meat-eating dinosaurs, running after take advantage of their 4 long, nimble limbs and tearing through flesh with their infamous teeth.

Some types might reach 6 m (20 feet) in length and had actually protective armor made from bony plates embedded in their skin.

The end-Cretaceous mass termination that cleaned out non-avian dinosaurs almost damaged notosuchians.

In South America, just the sebecids sustained, and with the dinosaurs gone, they rapidly increased to be the pinnacle predator.

The ocean blue separating the Caribbean islands and mainland South America would have presented a major obstacle for a terrestrial sebecid to swim throughout.

In the brand-new research study, Florida Museum of Natural History paleontologist Jonathan Bloch and his coworkers analyzed a 6-million-year-old fossilized tooth and vertebrae of a sebecid crocodyliform gathered at the region of Paleo Pond 1 on Sabana Grande de Boya, the Dominican Republic.

“The very first concern that we had when these teeth were discovered in the Dominican Republic and on other islands in the Caribbean was: What are they?” Dr. Bloch stated.

The authors likewise studied 18 million-year-old teeth from Cuba and a 29-million-year-old tooth from Puerto Rico.

“In discovering the fossils, we exposed possible proof in assistance of the GAARlandia hypothesis,” they stated.

“This theory recommends a path of short-term land bridges or a chain of islands when enabled land animals to take a trip from South America to the Caribbean.”

“If, the serrated teeth found on other Caribbean islands likewise came from a sebecid, the history of these huge reptiles extends beyond the Dominican Republic.”

“They would have inhabited and formed the area’s environments for countless years. Today you ‘d be hard-pressed to discover proof of the big terrestrial predators.”

“In their lack, smaller sized endemic predators like birds, snakes and crocodiles have actually progressed to fill the space in the food cycle.”

“You would not have actually had the ability to anticipate this taking a look at the modern-day environment,” Dr. Bloch stated.

“The existence of a big predator is truly various than we thought of in the past, and it’s interesting to consider what may be found next in the Caribbean fossil record as we check out back even more in time.”

The group’s paper was released in the Procedures of the Royal Society B

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Lázaro W. Viñola López et al2025. A South American sebecid from the Miocene of Hispaniola files the existence of pinnacle predators in early West Indies environments. Proc. R. Soc. B 292 (2045 ): 20242891; doi: 10.1098/ rspb.2024.2891