Crocodile Relatives Ruled Before Dinosaurs

Crocodiles and alligators are the surviving branch of an older archosaur family tree that once included many powerful Triassic reptiles. During the late Triassic, crocodile-line archosaurs, or pseudosuchians, filled major roles on land and included predators, armored herbivores, and other strange forms. Then a mass extinction near the end of the Triassic wiped out most of them and opened the way for dinosaurs to take over as the dominant large land animals. The crocodilian branch survived the collapse.

Previous Fact Next Fact