Behold the Crocoduck

Remember the crocoduck? Its non-existence is the supposedly definitive proof against evolution presented by aging teen heartthrob Kirk Cameron. Well, it turns out that such an animal, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, actually existed:

This is “the first water-adapted non-avian dinosaur on record,” said University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno in a press conference yesterday. Sereno is part of a team of researchers that was finally able to reconstruct Spinosaurus in full using newly discovered fossils and information gathered from the dinosaur’s initial discoverer, a German paleontologist named Ernst Stromer. According to their reconstruction, published today in Science, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus was a gigantic fish-eating, water-paddling marvel; one that, in Sereno’s words, was “a chimera — half duck, half crocodile.”

[Emphasis added.]

By Insomnis (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

And Spinosaurus wasn’t the only one to fit the arbitrary “crocoduck” description:

The extinct Anatosuchus has been nicknamed the “duckcroc” because of it’s duckbill-like mouth combined with otherwise crocodile-esque features.

There are also the Pelagornithidae, an exctinct species of “bony tooth” birds that have also been considered something of a duck-crocodile chimera.

In fact, Anatosuchus means “duck crocodile” in Latin or something.

By Todd Marshall [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Anatosuchus: duck in the front, croc in the back.

By Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com) (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Don’t make Osteodontornis angry….

What do you say to that, Seaver?


Photo credit: “Spinosaurus” by Insomnis (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons; “Anatosuchus” by Todd Marshall [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons; “Osteodontornis BW” by Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com) (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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