An artist's rendering by Jon Hughes shows how the fossilized remains of a Jurassic crocodile found in Oregon may have appeared in water.
Photo credit: Jim Barlow

Washington, Mar.20: The fossil of an ancient crocodile has been discovered in the Blue Mountains in eastern Oregon.

The discovery by the North American Research Group (NARG), whose members were digging for Jurassic-age mollusks known as ammonites, suggests that the Blue Mountains consist of rocks that traveled from somewhere in the Far East.

According to retired University of Oregon geologist William Orr, the humerus bone (upper leg) measuring 8.5 inches is shown in rock cut from a terrain in eastern Oregon.

The remains - about 50 percent of a 6- to 8-foot reptile, including long, needlepoint teeth - were found embedded in a rock on private property in the Snowshoe Formation of the Izee Terrane south of Dayville, Oregon.

Rocks containing the fossils were slowly cut out of the rock, after NARG members realized that the linear appearance of the fossils in the region's hard rocks suggested that a whole creature had been found, Orr said.

NARG adviser and director of the Thomas Condon State Museum of Fossils at the University of Oregon said the crocodile-like creature had a fish tail, and is 150 to 180- million-years old.

Bones from a Jurassic-age marine crocodile remain in rock removed from an eastern Oregon mountainous region. At left are rib bones. At right is an upper leg bone (humerus) that measures 8.5 inches.
Photo credit: Jim Barlow

It probably lived in an area from Japan to East Timor, somewhere in the western Pacific in a tropical estuarine environment," he added.

The remains of the crocodile, believed to be from the species Thalattosuchia and member of the Metriorhynchids group, now belong to the state, Orr said.

Andrew Bland, one of nine NARG members seeking fossils, says he first located the crocodile bones during a weekend trip in October 2005.

Thalattosuchia was a predator believed to have been common around much of the world during the Jurassic Period (142 million to 208 million years ago) was named in 1901 by German researcher Eberhard Fraas.

Based on locations where fossils have been found, scientists have theorized that Thalattosuchians may have moved from semi-aquatic freshwater reptiles into fully ocean forms.

Fossils similar to the Oregon crocodile appear today in many areas around South China, Orr said.

The reptiles' short stubby legs would have allowed them to move about land, where they may have laid eggs. But also, the creatures may have had webbed feet, which, in combination with the fish-like tail, would have made them rapid swimmers, allowing them to hunt along the surface of aquatic environments, scientists have theorized.

The new discovery suggests that dinosaur fossils "must be out there somewhere, but we just haven't looked hard enough," Orr said. (ANI)