This Giant Prehistoric 'River Boss' Is Largest Extinct Croc Ever Found in Australia - ScienceAlert

Say hello to Gunggamarandu maunala, or the "hole-headed river boss" – the biggest extinct croc yet found in Australia, and an important addition to the jigsaw of crocodylian evolution.

Today, there are only two crocodile species living in Australia: the Australian freshwater crocodile and the Indo-Pacific crocodile (also known as the estuarine or saltwater crocodile).

Currently, there are 21 named species of extinct Australian crocodylians spanning the past 66 million years, an era known as the Cenozoic.

Since then, almost all studies have indicated that the vast majority of extinct crocodylians from Australia were mekosuchines.

As it turns out, our new discovery reveals crocs were not as lonely on this continent as we once thought, because Gunggamarandu maunala is Australia's first recorded tomistomine crocodylian.

Today, there is only one living species of tomistomine in the world, the so-called false gharial, which lives in fresh water on the Malay peninsula and some Indonesian islands.

As the first known tomistomine from Australia, Gunggamarandu proves that crocodylians on this continent were more diverse than we realised.

But the proportions of the fossil suggest it is the largest known extinct croc from Australia.

maunala is between five million and two million years old.