CROCODILES lived side by side with dinosaurs 95 million years ago, according to archaeologists in the province of Guadalajara who are working on an established prehistoric dig.
One of the researchers at the settlement in Algora, Adán Pérez García, says the ancestors of modern-day crocodiles, along with the 'primitive, early' strains of the species, both shared a habitat with grass-eating dinosaurs during the High Cretacean era.
It would be millions of years before the descendants of today's crocs 'replaced' the earlier types, Pérez García explains.
Historians working on the dig in Algora have found a partial skeleton of a 'small herbivore' which 'appears to be a new species of sauropod', and is likely to be 'the oldest representative in Europe' of the titanosaurs – one of the largest and most diverse populations of dinosaurs living on the continent towards the end of the Cretacean period.
They resided in what would have been 'tropical coastal' habitats dotted with 'huge forests' - a conclusion reached based upon the 'enormous biodiversity of species discovered' in the Algora area, reveals Pérez García.
Members of the Evolutionary Biology research team at Spain's 'open university', the UNED, have been working in the Algora dig under Pérez García since 2016.
In that time, they have unearthed over 400 fossils of crocodiles, fish, tortoises and titanosaurs.
The above photograph, taken by the department, shows the team at work on the settlement.
