‘Crocopussy’ puts cat among crocodilians

LONG before cats there was “crocopussy”, the feline crocodile.

Scientists have unearthed 100 million-year-old fossil remains of an African creature that resembled a cross between a croc and a cat.

Pakasuchus kapilimai had the scaly amoured body of a crocodile but also cat-like features including canine teeth, slender limbs, and a flexible backbone that would have helped it move with agility and grace.

Unlike modern crocodiles, it probably hunted on land at a time when the world was dominated by the dinosaurs. The house cat-sized fossil skull and skeleton of Pakasuchus was discovered encased in sandstone on a river bank in the Rukwa Rift Basin of Tanzania. Paka is Swahili for cat, while suchus is derived from the Greek word for crocodile. The creature’s most distinctive feature was its jaw and teeth, said scientists in the journal Nature.

A CT (computed tomography) X-ray scan, of the kind commonly seen in hospitals, was used to peer through the stone and reveal hidden details of the teeth and skull.

Modern crocodiles have simple, pointed conical teeth adapted for seizing prey and tearing off large chunks of flesh which are swallowed whole. In contrast, Pakasuchus had teeth like those of a predatory mammal, including fangs and slicing molars with shearing edges.

Dr Patrick O’Connor, from the University of Ohio, US, led the international team of scientists.

When the creature was alive the area where its remains were found, near Lake Rukwa in south-western Tanzania, was criss-crossed by waterways and covered in low-lying vegetation.

Other fossil finds from the region dating to the same period include plant and meat-eating dinosaurs, as well as different types of crocodile. Pakasuchus belonged to an extinct family of Cretaceous crocodilians called notosuchians.

During much of the Cretaceous period, Afro-Arabia, India, Madagascar, Antarctica, Australia and South America together formed a southern “supercontinent” called Gondwana.