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Description
Koolasuchus cleelandi
Named by A. Warren, 1997
Diet: Carnivore (Prey included crustaceans, fish, and small dinosaurs such as Qantassaurus)
Type: Temnospondyl stereospondyl trematosaur amphibian (brachyopoids)
Size: 16 feet (5 meters) long and 1,100 lb.
Region: Southeastern Australia (Victoria)
Age: Early Cretaceous (120 to 113 million BC; Aptian)
Episode: Spirits of the Ice Forest
Info: Named after paleontologist Lesley Kool, while its specific name honors geologist Mike Cleeland, who found its remains in 1989 in the Cretaceous rocks near San Remo, Victoria, Australia (Wonthaggi Formation), Koolasuchus was the last of an ancient group of amphibians known as the temnospondyls, that once thrived and dominated the Carboniferous and Permian period, becoming top predators of the waterways back then, but went into decline in the Triassic as they were facing increasing competition with crocodylomorphs and other reptilian predators that were beginning to replace them worldwide throughout most of the Mesozoic era. But this Cretaceous outcast lived, thrived, and survived in the polar forests just several hundred miles from the South Pole with freezing, dark winters, where it was too cold and dangerous for crocodylomorphs to live in, compete, and replace, that is... until the climate warmed 113 million years ago in the Aptian-Albian boundary.

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Walking with Dinosaurs is owned by BBC

Description
Koolasuchus cleelandi
Named by A. Warren, 1997
Diet: Carnivore (Prey included crustaceans, fish, and small dinosaurs such as Qantassaurus)
Type: Temnospondyl stereospondyl trematosaur amphibian (brachyopoids)
Size: 16 feet (5 meters) long and 1,100 lb.
Region: Southeastern Australia (Victoria)
Age: Early Cretaceous (120 to 113 million BC; Aptian)
Episode: Spirits of the Ice Forest
Info: Named after paleontologist Lesley Kool, while its specific name honors geologist Mike Cleeland, who found its remains in 1989 in the Cretaceous rocks near San Remo, Victoria, Australia (Wonthaggi Formation), Koolasuchus was the last of an ancient group of amphibians known as the temnospondyls, that once thrived and dominated the Carboniferous and Permian period, becoming top predators of the waterways back then, but went into decline in the Triassic as they were facing increasing competition with crocodylomorphs and other reptilian predators that were beginning to replace them worldwide throughout most of the Mesozoic era. But this Cretaceous outcast lived, thrived, and survived in the polar forests just several hundred miles from the South Pole with freezing, dark winters, where it was too cold and dangerous for crocodylomorphs to live in, compete, and replace, that is... until the climate warmed 113 million years ago in the Aptian-Albian boundary.

Requested by

Walking with Dinosaurs is owned by BBC