{"id":280251,"date":"2025-11-12T20:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T20:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/280251\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T20:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T20:25:11","slug":"ancient-crocodiles-may-have-climbed-trees-to-hun-their-prey-fossils-reveal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/280251\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient crocodiles may have climbed trees to hun their prey, fossils reveal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have found the oldest crocodile eggshells in Australia, which reveal an ancient version of the species may have climbed trees to hunt their prey.<\/p>\n<p>The fossilised fragments were found in the backyard of a grazier in the small Queensland town of Murgon, about 247km north-west of Brisbane, by an international research team, including palaeontologists from the University of New South Wales (UNSW).<\/p>\n<p>The fossils reveal evidence of mekosuchine crocodiles that roamed Australia 55 million years ago.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/d8be2291-5df2-4f48-8ec8-ed215c550940.jpeg\"   alt=\"Virtual reconstruction of the Murgon paleoecosistem during the early eocene, 55 Mya.\"\/>Virtual reconstruction of the Murgon paleoecosistem during the early eocene, 55 Mya. (Supplied)<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, modern saltwater and freshwater crocodiles only arrived in Australia 3.8 million years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The specific species of mekosuchine found in Queensland has been called Wakkaoolithus godthelpi, and experts said they were far different to modern crocodiles.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a bizarre idea, but some of them appear to have been terrestrial hunters in the forests,&#8221; UNSW palaeontologist Professor Michael Archer said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some were also apparently at least partly semi-arboreal &#8216;drop crocs&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They were perhaps hunting like leopards, dropping out of trees on any unsuspecting thing they fancied for dinner.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/d16c0717-9363-4e64-a319-8a264c074b32.jpeg\"   alt=\"Teams excavating fossils of crocodile in Murgon, Queensland.\"\/>The palaeontological team from UNSW excavating the Tingamarra fossil deposit at Murgon. (Mina Bassarova)<\/p>\n<p>The latest discovery is not the only mekosuchine to be found in Queensland, with fossils estimated to be 25 million years old found in the Boodjamulla National Park in north-western Queensland.<\/p>\n<p>Archer said the findings revealed the ancient crocodiles could have reached huge sizes, up to five metres long.<\/p>\n<p>Modern crocodiles found in Australia are usually around four metres long if they are male, or three metres long if they are female.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers have found the oldest crocodile eggshells in Australia, which reveal an ancient version of the species may&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-280251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}