4.5million years old, the fossil of the last crocodile in Europe was discovered in Spain
A 4.5 million year old tooth has been discovered at the Baza-1 site in the north of the Granada Province in Spain. According to specialists, it belonged to the last known crocodile in Europe.
Since the discovery of the Baza-1 site in 1996, more than 2,000 fossils have been recovered from an area of only… 30 square meters! The excavations carried out between September 19 and October 8, 2023 also revealed more than 500 fossils of mammals and other vertebrates that lived in the region 4.5 million years ago, including rhinoceroses, horses three fingers called hipparions, bovids, deer, pigs, giant bears and even turtles. Among these fossils, a perfectly preserved crocodile tooth has particularly attracted the attention of specialists.
4.5 million year old crocodile tooth discovered on the Baza-1 site / Catalan Institute of Paleoecology (IPHES)
“It is a species of crocodile of African origin which arrived in the Iberian Peninsula by crossing an arm of the sea just before the Mediterranean dried up during the Messinian salinity crisis, a little ago more than 6 million years,” specifies paleontologist Bienvenido Martínez Navarro in a press release from the Catalan Institute of Paleoecology (IPHES).
These discoveries are particularly interesting because they should allow specialists to reconstruct the Pliocene paleoenvironment (an era which began 5.33 million years ago and ended 2.58 million years ago). This geological era, characterized by a tropical climate, high temperatures and abundant precipitation, would have been conducive to the development of this rich ecosystem.
So far, the most recent crocodile fossils found belonged to the very end of the Miocene geological epoch (23 to 5.3 million years ago) or the beginning of the Pliocene. According to Bienvenido Martínez Navarro, this is therefore the most recent proof of the presence of this species on European soil.
?What do we know about this last European crocodile?
Interviewed by Live Science, Bienvenido Martínez Navarro was delighted with this find which corresponds to the tooth of a crocodile that actually existed several million years ago. But many questions remain unanswered: “We have classified this species as Crocodylus because, for the moment, the only evidence of its presence on this site is this tooth, and we do not have enough anatomical resolution to be more precise” .
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