King of the Crocodylians: The Paleobiology of Deinosuchus

Abstract

David R. Schwimmer, 2002, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 240 p. (Hardcover, $45.00) ISBN: 0-253-34087-X In a media world driven by dinosaurs, crocodyliforms have finally made the big time. The giants and oddities of the group have appeared in feature articles in National Geographic (e.g., Flynn and Krause, 2000; Sereno, 2001) and on television programs. This attention comes with a cost, as the same media biases plaguing dinosaurs arise, especially the push to find the biggest. But every clade has cool stories to tell, and a truly fascinating group is finally reaching a broad audience. David Schwimmer's King of the Crocodylians is the most complete effort to date to tell the story of an animal crocodile aficionados have long admired—the enormous Campanian alligatoroid Deinosuchus . Deinosuchus found its way into the public imagination, however modestly, before any other big extinct crocodyliform; and, as Schwimmer describes, the famous restoration displayed by the American Museum of Natural History left an indelible mark in the minds of many. In many ways, King of the Crocodylians reads like two separate works combined into one. Parts of the book discuss the paleoenvironments and stratigraphy of the Cretaceous of eastern North America, and it is here that Schwimmer is at his best. Other parts are an account of the paleobiology of Deinosuchus , and it is here that the book is weakest. Nonetheless, Schwimmer has made a real contribution with the material he has collected and some of the conclusions drawn in this book. The first chapter sets the stage, beginning with a you-are-there description of a Late Cretaceous salt marsh somewhere in Alabama. Schwimmer describes the vegetation, the marine life, and the animals that lived on the land-sea interface. In a nod to the correct Scala Naturae, the peace is broken by Deinosuchus killing and …