Croc! Lost giants accessibility tour

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Croc! Lost Giants to Living Legends, Lost giants audio description and transcript includes:

  • Lost giants
  • Colossal crocs
  • Little local

Descriptive transcript

You have entered a dimly lit room, and at its centre is an enormous prehistoric crocodile-like skeleton suspended from the ceiling - it’s about as long as a bus and almost as wide. The skeleton is lit with rippling pale-blue light that gleams off its bones, as it appears to swim down from the ceiling with its head towards the ground and its metre-long jaws stretched open, displaying large bullet-shaped teeth. A panel on the wall summarises this section with the following text:

LOST GIANTS

Crocodiles are not living dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs and crocodilians share an ancient ancestor but evolved separately.  

The first crocodilians evolved about 200 million years ago in the Triassic period and lived alongside the dinosaurs.

For the first 20 million years, most crocodilians were land-based, before some evolved to live in lakes, swamps and even seas. Their bodies adapted, changing into different shapes and sizes to suit where they lived.

Some were enormous. Sarcosuchus the ‘SuperCroc’ appeared 113 million years ago. It was 10-12 metres long – twice as big as today’s biggest crocs.

 

You now stand beside the suspended skeleton. A small info-sign displays the following text:

COLOSSAL CROCS

This is Sarcosuchus imperator.

Its name means ‘flesh crocodile emperor’ but it’s commonly called ‘SuperCroc’.

It was one of the largest crocs ever. Its huge jaws had more teeth than a T. rex - it could eat dinosaurs for breakfast!

It was 12 metres long, weighed 8,000 kilograms, and had a diet of fish up to dinosaurs.

This [displayed skeleton is] a replica moulded from bones found in Niger, West Africa, by US palaeontologist Professor Paul Sereno.

 

Displayed near the SuperCroc skeleton is a small glass case containing another crocodile-like skeleton about 1.5 metres long, embedded in pieces of rock. A small info-sign displays the following text:

LITTLE LOCAL

While SuperCroc ruled Africa, in what’s now Australia we had Isisfordia duncani.

This little skeleton is a full-sized Isisfordia - they were one of Australia’s smallest extinct crocodilians. They were between 1 to 1.5 metres long, weighed less than 20 kg and had a diet of insects up to small animals. They lived 92-100 million years ago alongside Australia’s biggest dinosaurs. 
The name comes from where it was found and who found it - near the town of Isisford in central-western Queensland, by the former Deputy Mayor, Ian Duncan.