Egypt: How the Sphinx Is Helping Answer a Riddle About Extinct Crocodiles

My colleagues and I discovered a new species of extinct crocodile from a fossil found in the same rocks used to carve the Great Sphinx of Giza.

Today, there are only two species of the long-snouted gavial crocodile, both of which are endangered: Gavialis gangeticus and Tomistoma schlegelii. They are found only in freshwater environments on the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.

However, the fossil record of gavials goes back 80 million years, to the time of the dinosaurs. It shows that they…