File:The dinosaur book - the ruling reptiles and their relatives (1951) (19777867824).jpg

Title: The dinosaur book : the ruling reptiles and their relatives
Identifier: bookruli00colb (find matches)
Year: 1951 (1950s)
Authors: Colbert, Edwin H. (Edwin Harris), 1905-2001; Knight, Charles Robert, 1874-1953; American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Dinosaurs; Reptiles, Fossil
Publisher: New York : Published for the American Museum of Natural History by McGraw-Hill
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: IMLS / LSTA / METRO

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tim was the progenitor of a line that even- tually became remarkably like his phyto- saurian nemesis, the line of the crocodiles. The real deployment of the crocodiles began in the Jurassic period, and from that time to the present these reptiles have in- habited the tropical streams and swamps of the earth. Generallv speaking, the croco- diles may be described as large elongated, armored, meat-eating reptiles, spending most of their time in the water, but capable of active and aggressive movements upon land. The crocodiles float down streams, with only the eyes and the nostrils pro- truding above the surface of the water, ready to snap up instantly any hapless ani- mal that may come within range of their widely gaping and powerful jaws. It has been a highly successful pattern for exist- ence, for the crocodiles have watched the dinosaurs arise and decline, they have seen the mammals evolve almost from their first beginnings through the early stages of their radiation, to the present high point in their development. As a last and fleeting incident in their long existence upon the earth, the crocodiles have seen man develop from his primate forebears, to go through thou- sands of years of primitive cultural exist- ence and finally to attain his present state as the creator of a highly complex civiliza- tion. The evolution of the crocodiles was two- fold. There was first a Mesozoic radiation of these animals, the Mesosuchians (mes-o- sooK-e-yans), beginning with the Triassic ancestors like Protosuchus and extending through Jurassic and Cretaceous times to Ancestor of the crocodiles, Protosuchus. It was a primitive reptile, but many of its features show that it was already on the way to becoming a crocodile Restoration by John C. Germann from a model by Louise Waller Germann
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