Scientists revealed the Amazon basin in Peru was host to the most number of crocodile species dwelling in the same area 13 million years ago. They uncovered crocodile remains from two small fossil beds near the northeastern city of Iquitos.

Among the ancient crocodiles that dwelt on the basin was a strange creature called "Gnatusuchus pebasensis" that measured five feet long. It was a caiman fond of eating shellfish.

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It had a snout shaped like a shovel that it buries in the muddy wetland river bottom to catch prey. This creature also had bulbous teeth as opposed to razor sharp ones to crush mollusks and clams.

This kind of highly specialized anatomy and lifestyle was unknown to any crocodiles, according to paleontologist John Flynn from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. These discoveries are some of the many that reveal the origins of Amazonian biodiversity, and also the ancient diversification of life before the Amazon River formed some 10.5 million years ago.

Before the river came into existence, the Amazon consisted of a sheer expanse of wetlands filled with lakes, swamps and rivers. Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi, the vertebrate paleontology chief from Lima's Natural History Museum, said scientists are just scraping the surface of an extremely complex and fascinating history of the Amazon.

Researchers believe several crocodile species coexisted and shared the same wet environment because there were bountiful food sources and every species were feeding off different prey.

Flynn says the mega wetlands system was thriving with rich communities of aquatic prey species. Crocodiles evolved over time with a variety of skull shapes as they adapted to what they fed on, along with their body shape and size.

Another ancient crocodile species called the Purussaurus neivensis was 26 feet in length and had powerful jaws and teeth. It might even have reached up to 43 feet.

Mourasuchus atopus also appears to be the same length but it was a filter feeder very much similar to a whale shark or a baleen whale with rows of tiny, thin teeth to sift through huge amounts of small prey.

Under the caiman genus Paleosuchus are two other ancient clam crushing caimans that lived around the wetlands. The only non-caiman ancient crocodile was a gavial similar to the crocodiles from India with a long thin snout used to catch fish.

This study was published in the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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