Springer Nature’s international academic journal "Science Reports" recently published a paleontology research paper, claiming that the extinct type of African crocodile-Cecchia crocodile may be closely related to the existing American crocodile. This discovery suggests that crocodiles may have migrated from Africa to the Americas in the late Miocene (11 to 5 million years ago).
Before revealing the origin of American crocodile through ancient African crocodile skulls, researchers did not know whether crocodile migrated from Africa to America or vice versa-assuming a transatlantic voyage.
The corresponding authors of the paper, Massimo Delfino of the University of Turin, Italy, and Dawid Iurino of the University of Rome, etc., used CT to re-examine a piece that was found in As Sahabi, Libya in 1939. The Cecchia crocodile skull, currently in the Museum of Earth Sciences at the University of Rome, has identified several new skull structures, including a protrusion in the middle of the snout. This structure has never been found in any other African crocodile species, but can be seen in Orly There are four existing American crocodiles: Norco Crocodile, Morere Crocodile, American Crocodile and Cuban Crocodile. This common skull structure shows that there is a close evolutionary relationship between Cecchia and American crocodiles.
The author of the paper showed through further analysis of the evolutionary relationship between species that the Cecchia alligator may belong to the same lineage as the four crocodile species found in North and South America. They speculate that the crocodiles migrated westward from Australasia, via Africa to the Americas.
(Video source Springer Nature reporter Sun Zifa edited Zhou Jing)
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