crocodiles

• crocodiles

60:1.9140,000,000 years ago, sud­denly and with only the hint of the two pre­rep­til­ian an­ces­tors that de­vel­oped in Africa dur­ing the pre­ced­ing epoch, the rep­tiles ap­peared in full-fledged form. They de­vel­oped rapidly, soon yield­ing croc­o­diles, scaled rep­tiles, and even­tu­ally both sea ser­pents and fly­ing rep­tiles. Their tran­si­tion an­ces­tors speed­ily dis­ap­peared.

• reversion from land reptiles

60:2.11As time passed, the sea ser­pents grew to such size that they be­came very slug­gish and even­tu­ally per­ished be­cause they did not have brains large enough to af­ford pro­tec­tion for their im­mense bod­ies. Their brains weighed less than two ounces not­with­stand­ing the fact that these huge ichthyosaurs some­times grew to be fifty feet long, the ma­jor­ity be­ing over thirty-five feet in length. The ma­rine crocodil­ians were also a re­ver­sion from the land type of rep­tile, but un­like the sea ser­pents, these an­i­mals al­ways re­turned to the land to lay their eggs.

• crocodiles

60:3.2060,000,000 years ago, though the land rep­tiles were on the de­cline, the di­no­saurs con­tin­ued as monar­chs of the land, the lead now be­ing taken by the more ag­ile and ac­tive types of the smaller leap­ing kan­ga­roo va­ri­eties of the car­niv­o­rous di­no­saurs. But some­time pre­vi­ously there had ap­peared new types of the her­biv­o­rous di­no­saurs, whose rapid in­crease was due to the ap­pear­ance of the grass fam­ily of land plants. One of these new grass-eat­ing di­no­saurs was a true quadruped hav­ing two horns and a cape­like shoul­der flange. The land type of tur­tle, twenty feet across, ap­peared as did also the mod­ern croc­o­dile and true snakes of the mod­ern type. Great changes were also oc­cur­ring among the fishes and other forms of ma­rine life.

• crocodiles

61:2.6Along with the dis­ap­pear­ance of the di­no­saurs, other and great changes oc­curred in the var­i­ous branches of the saurian fam­ily. The sur­viv­ing mem­bers of the early rep­til­ian fam­i­lies are tur­tles, snakes, and croc­o­diles, to­gether with the ven­er­a­ble frog, the only re­main­ing group rep­re­sen­ta­tive of man’s ear­lier an­ces­tors.

• crocodiles

61:3.14Birds con­tin­ued to evolve, though few marked changes oc­curred. Rep­tiles were sim­i­lar to mod­ern types—snakes, croc­o­diles, and tur­tles.