The effects of the Genesis Flood are seen worldwide with deposits of terrestrial animals, such as dinosaurs and many other kinds of animals, often mixed together with marine animals.1–3
Recently, an evolutionary story was published about ancient life along the coasts during the alleged “Age of Dinosaurs.” It included a new crocodilian animal unearthed from sediments in Nevada.4
Nathan Smith et al. defines this pseudosuchian (crocodile):
We describe a new pseudosuchian archosaur, Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis gen. et sp. nov., from the Anisian (Middle Triassic) Fossil Hill Member of the Favret Formation (Nevada, USA), a pelagic [open sea] setting in the eastern Panthalassan Ocean characterized by the presence of abundant ammonoids and large-bodied ichthyosaurs.5
The name Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis means “Fisherman Croc’s Desert Song,” and although it’s a new species of crocodile, it is still a crocodile. There is no mention of the evolutionary origin of these pseudosuchians.
Dr. Nicole Klein of the University of Bonn was puzzled. When B. eremicarminis was found among sea-going creatures, she noted, “We were expecting to find things like marine reptiles. We couldn’t understand how a terrestrial animal could end up so far out in the sea among the ichthyosaurs and ammonites. It wasn’t until seeing the nearly completely prepared specimen in person that I was convinced it really was a terrestrial animal.”4
But finding terrestrial and marine animals together would not be surprising if they were deposited by the Flood thousands of years ago.6
Dr. Smith, lead author of the Biology Letters paper, said that the diversity of these animals was underappreciated.
“A growing number of recent discoveries of Middle Triassic pseudosuchians are hinting that an underappreciated amount of morphological and ecological diversity and experimentation was happening early in the group’s history. While a lot of the public’s fascination with the Triassic focuses on the origin of dinosaurs, it’s really the pseudosuchians that were doing interesting things at the beginning of the Mesozoic,” Smith said.5 (emphasis added)
Clearly, there was great diversity of the pseudosuchians. Creationists would expect variation within the created kind. However, “experimentation”? “doing interesting things”? These are not words that have scientific validity. One can only imagine what evolutionists would say if creationists said this.
How would creationists interpret this new pseudosuchian archosaur and where it was found? Similarly to how ICR’s Dr. Brian Thomas describes the fossil of a megaraptor.
This fossil discovery [a bone from a South American megaraptor found near Cape Otway, Australia] fits well with a biblical history, which goes something like this: Around 2348 BC, a worldwide flood crushed and reshaped the earth’s surface, breaking up a single landmass (Pangaea) into continents and fossilizing countless living things. Prior to the Flood megaraptors roamed Pangaea, during the Flood they were fossilized, and in the late Flood stages the boundaries of new continents (along with their fossils) were roughly shaped. Unlike the standard story, the outlines of this history have been testified to by reliable eyewitnesses, and this testimony has been faithfully preserved in Genesis.7
It is suggested the discovery of B. eremicarminis mirrors Dr. Thomas’ description of the megaraptor bone. The Flood caused massive tsunami-like waves to crash across the continents, transporting marine animals inland in the process. This is why we find land and marine fossils mixed together in so many places globally.
Dr. Smith said something that gives support to the idea these were flood-deposited fossils and not extinct crocodile relatives living large on the Triassic coastline:
“Essentially, it looks like you had a bunch of very different archosauriform groups deciding to dip their toes in the water during the Middle Triassic. What’s interesting, is that it doesn't look like many of these ‘independent experiments’ led to broader radiations of semi-aquatic groups,” said Smith.4
The best explanation is that these pseudosuchians (i.e., B. eremicarminis) were killed and catastrophically buried during the Flood just thousands of years ago.
References
- Tim Clarey, “Dinosaurs in Marine Sediments: A Worldwide Phenomenon,” Acts & Facts, June 2015, 16.
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Brian Thomas, “More Proof That Dinosaurs Lived with ‘Later’ Creatures,” Creation Science Update, June 8, 2011, https://www.icr.org/article/more-proof-t
hat-dinosaurs-lived-with. - Tim Clarey, “Fossil Butte National Monument: Spectacular Flood Graveyard,” Acts & Facts, January/February 2024, 8–11.
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Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, “A New Species of Extinct Crocodile Relative Rewrites Life on the Triassic Coastline,” Phys.org, July 10, 2024, https://phys.org/news/2024-07-species-ex
tinct-crocodile-rewrites-life.html#googl
e_vignette. - Nathan D. Smith et al., “A New Pseudosuchian from the Favret Formation of Nevada Reveals that Archosauriforms Occupied Coastal Regions Globally during the Middle Triassic,” Biology Letters 20, no. 7 (2024).
- Timothy Clarey, Carved in Stone: Geologic Evidence of the Worldwide Flood (Dallas, TX: ICR Publishing Group, 2022).
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Brian Thomas, “Dinosaur Fossil Erases 40 Million Years,” Creation Science Update, June 23, 2008, https://www.icr.org/article/dinosaur-fos
sil-erases-40-million-years.
Stage image: Australian Saltwater Crocodile in Daintree River
Stage image credit: Copyright © Lando25, 2022. Used in accordance with federal copyright (fair use doctrine) law. Usage by ICR does not imply endorsement of copyright holder.*
*Dr. Sherwin is a science news writer at the Institute for Creation Research. He earned an M.A. in invertebrate zoology from the University of Northern Colorado and received an honorary doctorate of science from Pensacola Christian College.
