The powerful theropod was up to 45 feet long, 12 feet in height, and weighed in at around 13 tons. It walked on two large and powerful hind legs, had a small brain, and enormously powerful jaws, with 10-inch, backward-curving serrated teeth in a six-foot-long skull. Like most of the giant carnivore theropods, its forelimbs were much smaller, ending in three-fingered, clawed hands.
Giganotosaurus was also thought to have been fast and agile, thanks to its thin, pointed tail, which may have provided balance and the ability to make quick turns while running. Another advantage the huge dinosaur possessed was that it was thought to have been homoeothermic (warm-blooded), with a metabolism between that of a mammal and a reptile, which would have enabled rapid growth.
And though the huge beast was powerful, it was also fast with a maximum running speed of 31 miles per hour. It would have been capable of closing its jaws quickly, capturing, and bringing down prey by delivering cutting or crushing bites.
The Giganotosaurus was an undisputed alpha-apex predator of its habitat, and would more than likely have fed on the plant-eating sauropods, as well as other carnivorous theropod dinosaurs.
In PRIMORDIA II, Ben’s time at the coast is ruined by the appearance of a giant sea-going crocodile. Though the sea-going variety never attained the size of some of the freshwater estuary types, they were still monstrously huge, powerful, and would have made a formidable predator.
The world’s biggest ocean-dwelling crocodile was twice the size of any crocodile living today. It was named Machimosaurus rex and would have weighed in at least 6,600 pounds and been up to 34 feet in length.
Crocodiles aren’t much fun for evolutionists as they remained nearly unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. For the Machimosaurus rex, it would have looked like a modern-day crocodile except for a slightly narrower snout, which was better designed for speed when going after prey in the open ocean.
The skull of this crocodile alone would have been nearly seven feet in length, and the ocean lagoons where it lived would have been filled with sharks, huge fish, and turtles — all favorite prey of the prehistoric sea hunter.
Many of the giant crocodiles died out during the mass extinction event that is believed to have happened between the Jurassic and Cretaceous Period about 150 million years ago. However, the Machimosaurus lived for tens of millions of years beyond this cataclysmic event, suggesting the mass extinction was not as widespread as some paleontologists first thought.
The Machimosaurus rex was an enormous beast, but he was still dwarfed by even bigger crocodiles that lived on land. Species, such as the world’s largest freshwater crocodile, the Sarcosuchus imperator, lived around 110 million years ago, grew to 42 feet, and would have tipped the scales at an astonishing 17,500 pounds (8,000kg), nearly triple the weight of the Machimosaurus.
I admit, I’m a little like Andy Martin in my story, where I would love to see these mighty creatures, if only for a moment. But the cryptozoologist’s spirit in me is encouraged whenever I read about some fantastic creature being discovered to have lived through its supposed extinction event. It is yet more evidence that points to some of the massive creatures of our prehistory confounding those who tell us they no longer exist.
One day, in a jungle, on a mountaintop, frozen land, or in the depths of a deep, dark ocean, we’ll meet one. Until that day, I’ll just have to go there and see them in my stories.