Florida - Dead Crocodilians
The St. Augustine Alligator Farm does something I feel more zoological parks should do: explore the evolutionary history of the animals they host. In the Maximo walkthrough, as well as in the 'Gomek Forever' showroom close-by, the Park also hosts a number of fossils, real and replica, of extinct crocodilians (as well as their, um, traces).
Atop, there's a small Paleogene crocodilian of whose actual age, location, and species I regrettably know nothing. Its placement near the Green River coprolites (Eocene) and the resemblance of the manner in which it was preserved to that of a fish from the Green River Formation in my own personal collection does give me some suspicions, though. Also nearby, the Eocene tomistonine Maroccosuchus.
The showcase dipped back into the Mesozoic with the pholidosaurid Crocodilaemus and a German alligatorid (whose age it does not specify).
Also on display here is the Paleogene-Neogene tomistonine Gavialosuchus; this skull in particular seems to be from the Pliocene of Florida.
Here I broke the composition of the post a little to show the Sarcosuchus and Deinosuchus cases, which are in 'Gomek Forever', a different exhibit to the rest of the images shown. Behind the two Mesozoic supercrocs is Gomek himself, a New Guinean Saltie and Maximo's predecessor as star croc of the Alligator Park. Gomek measured in at a full 18 feet (5.5 meters), and is still impressive even in death, mounted along with his prehistoric forbears.
Lastly in the first room, two posters and a statue bust (I think of Kaprosuchus), which delightfully departs from the usual color restorations of extinct crocodilians in striking yellow. The first poster roughly places crocodilian species in chronological relation to one another, and the second is a phylogenetic tree.
More fossils coming next, though these are non-crocodilian in nature.
