Five Extinctions, Zero Redesigns
The asteroid that ended the dinosaurs 66 million years ago killed roughly 75 percent of all species on Earth. Crocodilians watched it happen and kept going. They had already survived the Permian extinction 252 million years ago, the worst die-off in Earth's history, which erased an estimated 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land vertebrates. They survived the Triassic-Jurassic extinction. They survived the Late Devonian extinction. Each time, the world's dominant animals were erased and replaced. Crocodilians were present for every replacement and were never among the erased.
