The last European crocodile lived four and a half million years ago Activein the north of the province of Grenade. This is probably the main discovery of the latest excavation campaign carried out by a multidisciplinary team on the Baza-1 site and reported by the Bastetana town hall.
After twenty days of work in the field, the experts located new remains of crocodiles, which were added to those already found during previous campaigns – notably a few teeth – and thus confirmed that it was a peat bog, a swampy area with abundant organic remains. in which this reptile lived, with many other animals, during the European Pliocene.
This is the eighth excavation campaign in the area and has allowed the deepening of a project on the Pliocene in the Baza basin, sponsored by the Department of Culture of the Government of Andalusia. It was coordinated by the paleontologist Welcome Martinezwho led a team of 28 people from various Spanish institutions and universities, but also from countries like Argentina, Ireland or Italy.
During intense days of ten hours a day, 570 records were extracted with abundant fossils of large vertebrates, notably mastodons but also rhinoceroses, large bovids, giant deer and turtles. In addition, around 2,500 kilos of sediment were sifted from the excavation, where remains of micromammals – rodents, rabbits or shrews -, frogs, toads, lizards, snakes and numerous fish were found, as well as woody remains and leaves. It was therefore possible to reproduce the atmosphere of the time.
An ideal refuge
Bienvenido Martínez explained that these discoveries indicate that the south of the Iberian Peninsula was a refuge area for Pliocene tropical fauna, because the giant cold-blooded reptiles needed high external temperatures to keep their bodies functional.
The remains of crocodiles discovered, he stressed, show that this species, of African origin, crossed the peninsula during the period Terminal Miocenewhen the Mediterranean finally dried up. The fossils therefore correspond to the last crocodiles to have lived in Europe. According to the paleontologist, it is very likely that the Baza site “recorded the moment with the greatest paleodiversity of the last million years in Europe”.
The data obtained suggests that the site formed in a bog in which animals were trapped, died and were buried, allowing its conservation. This in turn reveals that Baza had an optimal tropical/subtropical climate at that time, dominated by high temperatures and lots of precipitationwith the presence of vast forests where abundant species of large mammals lived.
