Crocodylus anthropophagus
Crocodylus anthropophagus is an extinct species of crocodile from the Pleistocene of Tanzania. It lived 1.84 million years ago.

Brochu CA, Njau J, Blumenschine RJ, Densmore LD · CC BY 2.5 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- CrocodylusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Crocodylia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Mesoeucrocodylia
Time the record covers
At most 1.9 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 774 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
6 occurrences of Crocodylus anthropophagus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
6 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
- Olduvai Formation · Vogel River Series (?) Group5
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The named rock units Crocodylus anthropophagus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Crocodylus anthropophagus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Crocodylus anthropophagus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
29 taxa- Clarias2 sites
- Geochelone pardalis2 sites
- Palaeoloxodon recki2 sites
- Pelusios sinuatus2 sites
- Alcelaphini1 site
- Antilopini1 site
- Aves1 site
- Boidae1 site
- Bovidae1 site
- Cephalophini1 site
- Cichlidae1 site
- Epimys (Mastomys)1 site
- Equus1 site
- Hipparion1 site
- Hippopotamus gorgops1 site
- Jaculus1 site
- Limicolaria1 site
- Metridiochoerus compactus1 site
- Phacochoerus1 site
- Pipidae1 site
- Ranidae1 site
- Reduncini1 site
- Reptilia1 site
- Saccostomus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Crocodylus anthropophagus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- A New Horned Crocodile from the Plio-Pleistocene Hominid Sites at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania5
- A new cranium of Crocodylus anthropophagus from Olduvai Gorge, northern Tanzania1
Each of the 6 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Crocodylus anthropophagus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Brochu CA, Njau J, Blumenschine RJ, Densmore LD
- Licence
- CC BY 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Crocodylus anthropophagus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itCrocodylus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brochu et al. 2010