According to CNN, scientists in Australia have identified a new species of crocodile.
The new crocodile species dates back to the Cretaceous era when the majority of the known dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Its final meal was said to be a juvenile dinosaur.
In 2010, fossilized bones were discovered on a sheep farm in the Winton Formation, a roughly 95 million-year-old geological rock deposit in eastern Australia.
Although some of the crocodile fossils were partially crushed, researchers discovered several minuscule bones that belonged to another species among the relics. The tiny bones were recognized as belonging to a dinosaur by researchers at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, according to results published on Friday in the journal Gondwana Research.
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Confractosuchus sauroktonos, which means “broken dinosaur slayer,” was an eight-foot-long freshwater crocodile. According to Matt White, the museum’s research associate and principal researcher, it would have become considerably larger.
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The researchers have no idea how the crocodile perished.
Approximately 35% of the animal was preserved. It lacked a tail and limbs but had a nearly full head. The researchers next utilized X-ray and CT scans to determine what bones were found inside the remains.
The remains belonged to a 4-pound juvenile ornithopod, a group of plant-eating dinosaurs that includes duck-billed animals, according to the research. The ornithopod’s bones were also the first of its kind identified in Australia, indicating that it is a newly discovered species.
One of the ornithopod’s femurs was torn in half within the crocodile’s guts, while the other had a bite mark so hard that a teeth mark was left on it. As a result, experts assume the Confractosuchus either killed the animal directly or scavenged it shortly after it died.
In Australia, there is extremely rare evidence of crocodiles feeding on and consuming dinosaurs.
While Confractosuchus would not have specialized in eating dinosaurs, it would not have passed up a simple meal like the immature ornithopod bones discovered in its stomach, according to White in an interview with CNN.
The discovery was particularly uncommon since there are so few unambiguous examples of dinosaurs being preyed on, and it is the first proof that crocodiles were consuming dinosaurs in Australia. Researchers unearthed the skeletons of horror crocodiles that could take down big dinosaurs with fangs the size of bananas in August 2020.
According to White, dinosaurs were most likely a significant resource in the Cretaceous biological food chain. Due to the scarcity of similar worldwide specimens, this prehistoric crocodile and its final meal will continue to shed light on the relationships and behaviors of creatures that lived in Australia millions of years ago.
The Confractosuchus sauroktonos is the Winton Formation’s second crocodile to be named. The rock bed has been the site of multiple scientific discoveries in recent years, including the discovery of a 96-million-year-old pterosaur in October of 2019.
