Paleontologists have been discovering sharp, jagged prehistoric teeth on Caribbean islands for the past three decades. The weird part? According to scientists, the owner of such teeth – the larger land predators – should not exist there.
But a team of international researchers found that millions of years ago it was a peculiar tall crocodile-like land predator named Sebecid roamed the Caribbean until its South American relative died about 11 million years ago. These findings reinforce the theory that land bridges or a series of islands once connected the Caribbean Sea to South America.
In 2023, researchers discovered another fossil teeth in the Dominican Republic, this time using two vertebrae, allowing them to eventually identify the remains as belonging to Sebech. As detailed in a study published Wednesday in the minutes of the Royal Society B meeting, experts dated the fossils about 71,400 to 4,570,000 years ago, more than three million years after their South American cousins disappeared. “It’s hard to describe finding the fossil and realizing it’s indescribable emotion,” said paleontologist Lazaro Viñola Lopez of the Florida Museum of Natural History in a museum statement.
According to the statement, some Sebecids are described as tall alligators[s] Built like a greyhound”—can be up to 20 feet (6.1 meters) long. They are carnivorous people, chasing their four long legs. In South America, they are the only member of Notosuchia, a group of endangered crocodile men who survived the craziest little marshy, making dinosaurs increasingly compete for playsecy seecy of the plays thing that of thing seen.
But how do land-based predators reach the islands of the Caribbean Sea? The researchers say these results support the Gaarlandia hypothesis that land bridges or island chains millions of years ago brought South American animals, such as Sebecids, to the Caribbean. When the channel disappears, Sebecids will be isolated from any threats that threaten their relatives disappear in South America.
If researchers confirm that strange teeth from other islands also belong to Sebecids, it means that these apex predators have affected the ecology of the region for millions of years. Although “you won’t be able to predict modern ecosystems,” said Jonathan Bloch, a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, a study co-author, and that’s the truth. Today, most Caribbean predators, such as birds, snakes and even crocodiles, are large and smaller.
However, this study shows where there is smoke, there may be fire, or in this case, sprinting, extinct crocodiles are built like greyhounds.
