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10 Million Years Ago, This 23-Foot Crocodile Ruled Over a Swamp Full of Giants

It was called Purussaurus, and it was a beast.

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In the wetlands of prehistoric Colombia, there was once a fearsome 4,000-pound, 23-foot-long relative of the crocodile with a bite that could probably chomp through a car. And it needed it, judging by fossil evidence indicating that the animals it ate were even bigger as the predator itself. It was called Purussaurus, and it was a beast.

As researchers report in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, fossil bite marks from Colombia’s La Venta region provide the clearest evidence that giant crocodilians actively hunted even bigger creatures, mostly mammals, during the Middle Miocene, over 10 million........

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