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Dr. David Schwimmer, a professor and paleontologist at Columbus State University, worked with the Tellus Science Musuem in Cartersville to have a full replica of a “dinosaur-killer” crocodile on display.
Schwimmer, who has worked with the Tellus for several years, helped create a mounted, scholarly accurate replica of Deinosuchus schwimmeri, a crocodilian prehistoric reptile known to kill dinosaurs.
The Tellus Museum is now hosting what they call a unique display from the species, with a full-size and accurate skeletal model of the croc measuring over 30 feet long.
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“These replicas are more than just creating a ‘scare factor,’” Schwimmer said in a statement. “Understanding dinosaurs’ predatory habits helps us decode some of nature’s greatest survival strategies. By studying these ancient apex predators, we are essentially looking back in time to see exactly how life adapted and dominated a changing world.”
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The skeleton is on display at the Tellus Museum, which university officials said was the only exhibit of its kind in the world.
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A Tellus spokeswoman said Schwimmer’s work with the museum is a major reason their fossil gallery has a focus on dinosaurs native the southeast United States.
The university said the Deinosuchus schwimmeri was a “dinosaur-eating, school-bus sized relative of modern alligators,” measuring up to 31 feet long.
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The Tellus Museum commissioned the skeletal replica as a way to enhance educational opportunities at the museum.
“Each year, we have thousands of students visit us from across Georgia and neighboring states,” Hannah Eisla, the Tellus Science Museum’s director of education, said. “Many of these students come on school field trips specifically to learn more about the region they call home and how it has changed over time.”
Eisla said adding the new skeletal model lets the museum give visitors a more details view of the region’s ecosystem during the Cretaceous period.
In 2020, a group of paleontologists named the species for Schwimmer, honoring years of his “tireless work” and “meticulous fossil study, journal publications, conference presentations and a 2002 book on the giant North American Cretaceous crocodilian genus.”
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