Stomatosuchus inermis

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See Stomatosuchus inermis in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Stomatosuchus inermis was an enormous 12 meter long crocodilian from the Upper Cretaceous of Egypt. It may have been a contemporary of the equally enormous Sarcosuchus imperator. Unlike its carnivorous relative, S. inermis was a baleen whale-like planktivore, as its jaws were built in a manner reminiscent of a pelican, in that the snout was long, but flat, like a lid, and the toothless lower jawbone is extremely thin, like a gasket, suggesting it supported a pouch like throat. S. inermis' 2 to 3 centimeter long teeth were only in its upper jaw, and were used to hold their prey (minnow-like fish) as water was forced back out of its mouth.

Sadly, the only known specimen, which was collected in German paleontologist Ernst Stromer's Egyptian expedition, was obliterated when the Munich Museum was destroyed during an Allied bombing raid in 1944.

Links

German Wikipedia entry [1]

Reconstruction of Stomatosuchus inermis [2]

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