{"id":599898,"date":"2026-08-21T06:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T06:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/599898\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T06:00:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T06:00:31","slug":"giant-crocodylians-dominated-the-food-chain-in-miocene-south-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/599898\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant crocodylians dominated the food chain in Miocene South America"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\"Reconstruction<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

image:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reconstruction of Purussarus neivensis attacking Pericotoxodon platignathus.<\/p>\n

view more\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Credit: Miguel Hernandez<\/p>\n

South America during the Miocene was a frightening place. More than ten million years ago, a vast lake covered much of the continent, home to giant turtles and crocodylians.<\/p>\n

On the lake’s shores hunted a wide range of predators, including anacondas, saber-toothed mammals, flightless “terror birds” and sebecids \u2014 terrestrial relatives of crocodylians.<\/p>\n

A recent study shows that crocodylians were in fact the most significant group of predators\u00a0in this habitat.<\/p>\n

“There was so much prey available that mammalian predators couldn’t have eaten it all,” says\u00a0Oscar Wilson<\/a>, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki.<\/p>\n

“Our new study shows that crocodylians in particular were the\u00a0region’s most important predators, especially when it came to hunting large prey.”<\/p>\n

Bite traces reveal the predator<\/p>\n

On the lake’s shores\u00a0lived a \u00a0great variety of herbivores:\u00a0giant ground sloths, glyptodonts \u2014 relatives of armadillos \u2014 and several groups of ungulates, such as astrapotheres (“lightning beasts”) and toxodontids. The ungulates of this era could weigh well over a tonne.<\/p>\n

But the predators were giants too. The largest predator of the time was a seven-metre-long, 1,800-kilogram crocodylian,\u00a0Purussaurus neivensis, a relative of modern caimans. At the top of the food chain, it may even have influenced the size of herbivore populations, the new study suggests.<\/p>\n

The research is based on the analysis of fossils held in museum collections. Bite and tooth marks left by predators on herbivore fossils are the only direct evidence of interactions between species. The fossils examined were between 10.5 and 16 million years old.<\/p>\n

“The frequency of marks likely made by\u00a0Purussaurus\u00a0suggests that it was an important predator in these tropical ecosystems,” Wilson comments.<\/p>\n

The study was published in\u00a0Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Journal<\/p>\n

Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology<\/p>\n

Method of Research<\/p>\n

Observational study<\/p>\n

Subject of Research<\/p>\n

Animal tissue samples<\/p>\n

Article Title<\/p>\n

Physical evidence of crocodylian predation on ungulates in the Middle Miocene of Colombia<\/p>\n

Article Publication Date<\/p>\n

17-Aug-2026<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"image:\u00a0 Reconstruction of Purussarus neivensis attacking Pericotoxodon platignathus. view more\u00a0 Credit: Miguel Hernandez South America during the Miocene…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-599898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}