{"id":258368,"date":"2025-11-12T09:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T09:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/258368\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T09:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T09:14:08","slug":"scientists-discover-bizarre-australian-crocodile-species-that-jumped-from-trees-to-hunt-millions-of-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/258368\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists discover \u2018bizarre\u2019 Australian crocodile species that jumped from trees to hunt millions of years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Researchers have discovered Australia<\/a>\u2019s oldest-known crocodile<\/a> eggshells belonging to a \u201cbizarre\u201d reptile <\/a>that hunted from trees<\/a> some 55 million years ago.<\/p>\n

This was epochs before modern saltwater<\/a> and freshwater species <\/a>arrived on the continent.<\/p>\n

Researchers have been carrying out excavations for decades at a clay pit in a grazier\u2019s backyard in the Queensland<\/a> town of Murgon, offering a window back in time to when the continent was still connected to Antarctica and South America.<\/p>\n

Now, they have uncovered the oldest crocodilian eggshells ever found in Australia. They belong to a strange \u201cmekosuchine\u201d clade of extinct crocodiles<\/a> that dominated inland waters 55 million years ago, according to a new study published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.<\/p>\n

It has been named Wakkaoolithus godthelpi after the Wakka Wakka First Nations people on whose country the fossils<\/a> were found.<\/p>\n

\"ReconstructionReconstruction of the Murgon paleoecosistem during the early eocene (University of New South Wales)<\/p>\n

Some of these crocodiles grew up to five metres long. \u201cIt\u2019s a bizarre idea. But some of them appear to have been terrestrial hunters in the forests,\u201d palaeontologist Michael Archer from the University of New South Wales, one of the authors of the new study, said. \u201cSome were also apparently at least partly semi-arboreal \u2018drop crocs\u2019. They were perhaps hunting like leopards \u2013 dropping out of trees on any unsuspecting thing they fancied for dinner.\u201d <\/p>\n

Researchers said the extinct crocodiles laid eggs on the margins of lakes and adapted their reproductive strategy to fluctuating conditions. They eventually had to adapt to shrinking waterways and dwindling numbers of their large-sized prey.<\/p>\n

Further excavations at the site could provide more insights into Australia\u2019s prehistoric ecosystems before it became an independent continent, the researchers said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis forest was also home to the world\u2019s oldest-known songbirds, Australia\u2019s earliest frogs and snakes, a wide range of small mammals with South American links, as well as one of the world\u2019s oldest known bats,\u201d Michael Stein, another author of the study, said.<\/p>\n

Study lead author Xavier Panad\u00e8s i Blas said the latest research showed how powerful studying eggshell fragments could be. <\/p>\n

\u201cEggshells should be a routine, standard component of palaeontological research,\u201d he said, \u201ccollected, curated and analysed alongside bones and teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey preserve microstructural and geochemical signals that tell us not only what kinds of animals laid them,\u201d he explained, meaning eggshells, \u201cbut also where they nested and how they bred.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-258368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}