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‘The most dangerous place in the history of planet Earth’: Scientists reveal fierce predators, including flying reptiles and crocodile-like hunters that roamed SAHARA in Africa 100 million years ago
- Researchers reviewed fossils found in rocks in southeastern Morocco
- At this time, the Sahara was not the desert that it is today, but a vast river system
- It hosted the ferocious saber-toothed dinosaur Carcharodontosaurus
- The many predators that lived there would have feasted on the abundance of fish.
The Sahara in Africa may have been “the most dangerous place in the history of planet Earth,” a paleontological study concluded.
A team of international researchers discovered that what is now the famous desert region was home to ‘fierce predators’ some 100 million years ago.
At this time, the Sahara was a vast river system that housed flying reptiles and crocodile hunters.
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The Sahara in Africa may have been “the most dangerous place in the history of planet Earth,” a paleontological study concluded. A team of international researchers discovered that what is now the famous desert region was home to ‘fierce predators’ some 100 million years ago. At this time, the Sahara was a vast river system, pictured
The team reviewed fossils from a set of rocks from the Cretaceous age in southeast Morocco, known to experts as the ‘Kem Kem Group’.
They discovered that three of the largest predatory dinosaurs of the time lived in the Sahara at the time.
These included the saber-toothed Carcharodontosaurus, which was over 26 feet (8 meters) long with huge jaws and long, jagged teeth, each measuring up to 7.8 inches (20 centimeters) in length.
Also living in the region was the 26-foot-long Deltadromeus, a member of the raptor family with long, slender hind limbs, as well as predatory flying reptiles, pterosaurs, and crocodile hunters.
“This was possibly the most dangerous place in the history of planet Earth,” said author and paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim of the University of Portsmouth.
The Sahara of 100 million years ago, he added, was “a place where a human time traveler would not last long.”
However, what did live in abundance in the region was fish, which the predators would have relied on to eat, explained the author of the newspaper David Martill, from the University of Portsmouth.
“This place was full of absolutely huge fish, including giant coelacanths and lungfish,” said Professor Martill. “There is a huge freshwater saw shark called onchopristis with the most fearsome rostral teeth: they are like barbed daggers, but wonderfully brilliant.” In the image, the artistic impression of onchopristis
“This place was full of absolutely huge fish, including the giant coelacanths and the lungfish,” added Professor Martill.
“The coelacanth, for example, is probably four or even five times greater than the coelacanth today.”
“There is a huge freshwater saw shark called onchopristis with the most fearsome rostral teeth: they are like barbed daggers, but wonderfully brilliant.”
The full study findings were published in the journal ZooKeys.
