Two paleontologists from National Taiwan University (NTU) have discovered an endemic Taiwanese species and the largest known reptile in Taiwan’s natural history, after spending four years re-examining fossils from an extinct crocodile.
In a Facebook post on Friday last week, NTU said the reptile, named Toyotamaphimeia taiwanicus, was discovered by Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修), an associate professor in the university’s Department of Life Science, and Cho Yi-yang (卓義揚), a master’s degree graduate from its Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
It had been mistakenly identified before by Japanese academic Tokio Shikama as a Taiwanese Malay crocodile, which existed during the Pleistocene, the university said.
Photo courtesy of National Taiwan University via CNA
The extinct reptile was estimated to reach up to 7m in length, making it the largest reptile in the country’s natural history and also larger than any extent species of saltwater crocodile.
The crocodile fossils were discovered in Tainan in 1972 by Shikama.
Tsai and Cho borrowed the fossils from Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science and brought them to Taiwan, NTU said.
CROCODILE PRINCESS
The fossils had been named after “Toyotama,” a mythological Japanese princess, who, according to legend, turned into a crocodile, NTU said.
The university said that Taiwan now has its own “crocodile princess” and it is thought to be related to the also extinct Toyotamaphimeia machikanensis, which was discovered in Osaka, Japan, in the 1960s.
The study might help address the reasons and causes of extinction in Taiwan and the wider issue of how climate change is contributing to the sixth mass extinction crisis, it said.
The research was first published in the Journal of Paleontology on June 29.
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