From the Aoulef crocodile to Sarcosuchus imperator

This paper is a tribute to my colleague and friend France de Lapparent; it recounts briefly all the stages of a nice paleontological discovery, which began in Algeria in 1947, when the geologist Albert-Felix de Lapparent collected fragments of a crocodile of massive size in Lower Cretaceous sediments. The study of these fragments by France de Lapparent, and the subsequent discovery in Niger of a skull and elements of the skeleton of a crocodile of the same species by the author of these lines, led us together to describe and to name this monster Sarcosuchus imperator, which is today famous under the nickname Supercroc.