100 million years ago, Kem-Kem was filled with ferocious predators, including flying reptiles and crocodile-like hunters.
An international team of scientists has published the largest survey of vertebrate fossils from an area of Cretaceous rock formations in southeastern Morocco known as the Kem Kem group.
About 100 million years ago, the area was home to a vast river system filled with many different species of aquatic and terrestrial animals. Fossils from the Kem-Kem group include the three largest known carnivorous dinosaurs, including the Carcharodontosaurus.
Southeast Morocco, where dozens of fossils of various Cretaceous predators have been found.
This giant, according to various estimates, could reach from 8 to 13 meters in length and weighed from 6, 2 to 15, 1 tons. Its huge jaws resembled scissors, and its teeth reached 20 centimeters in length. Carcharodontosaurus shared living space with other largest carnivorous dinosaurs of all time - the Deltadromeus up to 13 meters long and the Spinosaurus up to 16 meters long and weighing more than 7 tons. According to scientists, their simultaneous existence lasted for about 20 million years.
“This is possibly the most dangerous place in the history of planet Earth. A place that a time traveler wouldn't last long.”- Nizar Ibrahim, lead author of the study.
In addition, predatory flying and ground reptiles were present in abundance in the Kem-Kem group. According to co-author David Martilla of the University of Portsmouth, many of the predators relied on abundant fish stocks.
“This place was filled with huge fish, including giant coelacanths and light fish. For example, the coelacanth was probably four or even five times the size of modern coelacanths. There was also a huge freshwater shark named Onchopristis with the most formidable of the rostral teeth - they look like prickly daggers, but they shine beautifully. And these huge predators ate this giant fish and each other.”- David Martill
The Kem-Kem group was dominated by aquatic and sub-aquatic invertebrates and vertebrates (about 85 percent of all known fauna), almost all of which were predators. Most vertebrates, with the exception of pterosaurs and dinosaurs, lived exclusively or predominantly in the aquatic environment. Moreover, mammals and birds in Kem-Kem were extremely rare.
According to the authors of the study, there is no comparable modern terrestrial ecosystem on Earth with a similar bias towards large predators.
To collect the vast data and images of fossils that were originally included in his doctoral dissertation, Nizar Ibrahim visited the collections of Kem-Kem on several continents.
The study authors note that this is the most comprehensive study of data on fossil vertebrates from the Sahara since 1936, when the famous German paleontologist Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach published his last major work.