Deinosuchus

[anchry6]

What was different about the Deinosuchus the current Nile crocodile?
Regardless of size.
Thanks

[Gwangi]

Well for starters the Deinosuchus was a member of the alligatoroidea. The Nile crocodile belongs to the crocodylidae family.

[wings]

This is from a book titled "King of the Crocodylians: The Paleobiology of Deinosuchus."

"... the teeth are very thick and unusally blunt in the mid and rear jaws, and that the bony plates (osteoderms) covering the neck, back, and anterior part of the tail were very lumpy and relatively larger than in modern crocodylians. The elongate front portion of the skull, the rostrum, is board, as in alligators, but slightly bulbous at the tip and with a significant constriction where the fourth lower jaw teeth emerged and crossed the upper jaw when the mouth was closed. This exposed lower tooth is common in modern crocodiles but absent in all living alligators and caimans; however, it turns out to be an ancestral characteristic of all eusuchians..."

"...Deinosuchus is quite evidently a genus that we can classify among the basal Late Cretaceous alligatoroids... one subtle alligatoroid detail of Deinosuchus... it confirms that the alligatoroid character of having a high, smooth, posterodorsal margin on the ilium was present in Deinosuchus...tendency to have the third and fourth teeth in the dentary located in joined or confluent alveoli... the same conjoined dentary tooth character is observed in some other primitive alligatoroids and eusuchians close to the alligatorid base..."

Reference
Schwimmer, David R. (2002). "The Life and Times of a Giant Crocodylian". King of the Crocodylians: The Paleobiology of Deinosuchus. Indiana University Press. 

[Gwangi]

Reference
Schwimmer, David R. (2002). "The Life and Times of a Giant Crocodylian". King of the Crocodylians: The Paleobiology of Deinosuchus. Indiana University Press.

I didn't realize he was a paleontologist both on AND off screen!

[wings]

Reference
Schwimmer, David R. (2002). "The Life and Times of a Giant Crocodylian". King of the Crocodylians: The Paleobiology of Deinosuchus. Indiana University Press.

I didn't realize he was a paleontologist both on AND off screen!

Is that why he didn't have his photo on the inside cover of the book...