Scientists are painting a clearer picture of an ancient crocodile-like predator that roamed Iowa 328 million years ago, millions of years before the dinosaurs.
The Whatcheeria was an archaic tetrapod (a four-legged animal) that inhabited the swampy waters of what is today Iowa during the Carboniferous Period, when the area was subtropical and looked more like South Florida than the Midwest we know today, said Ben Otoo, a researcher at the University of Chicago’s Coates Lab, which studies the evolution of early vertebrates.
Otoo and his colleagues at the University of Chicago published a paper Monday in the peer-reviewed Communications Biology Journal that uncovered the aquatic animal’s rapid rate of growth early in its life, giving it a quick edge over other species in its aquatic environment.
“Especially in an aquatic context, if you’re a vertebrate, one of the best ways to avoid getting preyed on is to get bigger,” Otoo told USA TODAY. “Because the bigger you are, the fewer things that can eat you easily.”
The collection of Whatcheeria fossils is extensive. Hundreds of specimens of different sizes are kept at the Field Museum in Chicago. They come mostly from one defunct limestone quarry near the town the species is named after – What Cheer, Iowa – where its fossils were first discovered, according to a news release about the study. Whatcheeria was first identified as its own species in 1995.
“Usually we’re working with parts of a single individual,” Otoo said. “So to have enough where I can go into the collections and pull out at least one representative of pretty much of this animal’s body is nuts.”
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