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100 million years ago, fierce predators like flying reptiles were part of what is now southeast Morocco, probably the most dangerous place on Earth, researchers say.
In a study published April 21 in the scientific journal ZooKeys, an international group of ten researchers concluded that this region, known as Kem Kem, now rocky and arid, was filled with terrifying predators.
“It was probably the most dangerous place in Earth’s history, a place where a human time traveler would not last long,” said lead author Nizar Ibrahim of the University of Detroit Mercy.
About 100 million years ago, the region had an extensive river network, filled with many species of aquatic and terrestrial animals.
In Kem Kem, fossils of various animals from the past were found, including three of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs ever known, including the shark-toothed carcarodontosaurus, which was over eight meters long, with a huge jaw and jagged teeth. long.
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Photo / Fabio Manucci
Apple, giant crocodile
Next up is the Deltadromeus, also about eight meters long and a member of the raptor family, with long hind legs and abnormally thin for its size.
The scientists also analyzed fossils from other flying reptiles and crocodile-like predators.
David Martill, a professor at the University of Portsmouth and co-author of the study, explained that these large predators to survive depended on the abundant existence of fish in the region.
“This place was filled with absolutely huge fish, including giant coelacanths and lungfish,” wrote Martill, for whom the study “is the most comprehensive work on fossil vertebrates in the Sahara in nearly a century, from the famous German paleontologist Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach published his last great work in 1936. “
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