Teacher Guide: Lesson 13.3

The Weekly Reader Connections feature on Kids' Place Houghton Mifflin Math provides your students with additional information about the topics that appear in the Curriculum Connection feature in their student books.

The article “Dinosaur Chomper” tells how, in October 2000, scientists found the fossil remains of a 35- to 40-foot crocodile that lived in Africa about 110 million years ago. They nicknamed the giant beast “SuperCroc”.

Additional Information:

• Fossils of the species Sarcosuchus imperator were first discovered in the 1940s and 1950s by French paleontologist Alfred Felix de Lapparent. It was named Sarcosuchus imperator in the 1960s by French paleontologists. Those scientists reported finding skulls and other parts and gave the giant beast its name, which means “flesh crocodile emperor.”
• The fossils found in 2000 in Niger by University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno include the most complete fossil skeleton of the species yet found.
• Sereno estimates that Sarcosuchus imperator was 35- to 40-feet long and weighed about 17,500 pounds, which means it was about twice as long and many times as heavy as the largest living crocodiles.
• The skull of the Sarcosuchus imperator that was found in Niger is about 6 feet long and is lined with more than 100 teeth. The upper jaw overlapped the lower jaw, which some scientists believe enabled SuperCroc to lock onto its prey.
• Because of its powerful jaws and enormous body, scientists think SuperCroc could easily have hunted and devoured some dinosaurs.
• Sereno said he thinks the SuperCroc he discovered was about 80 percent fully grown and that it probably would have taken 50 to 60 years for the ancient crocodile to reach full growth.

The Word Wise activity checks students' reading comprehension, asking them to answer questions based on information found in the main story.

1. When do scientists believe SuperCroc lived? (Scientists believe SuperCroc lived about 110 million years ago.)
2. Where were the latest SuperCroc fossils found? (SuperCroc fossils were found in an area of a desert called the Sahara, in the African country of Niger.)
3. Which animals were prey for SuperCroc? (Fish, turtles, and dinosaurs were prey for SuperCroc.)

In the Data Hunt activity students will measure classroom or school items and compare those measurements to SuperCroc's length.