For the primary time, scientists have discovered indeniable proof that an historical crocodile ancestor chowed down on a dinosaur.
Preserved inside a fossilized crocodyliform, a member of a newfound species dubbed Confractosuchus sauroktonos, are the partially digested stays of a juvenile bipedal ornithopod, paleontologist Matt White of the University of New England in Australia and colleagues report February 10 in Gondwana Research.
Crocodyliforms embody trendy species like crocodiles and alligators in addition to their ancestors. Those ancestors lived alongside dinosaurs for tens of millions of years, and former proof, reminiscent of chunk marks on fossilized dinosaur bones, has hinted that croc ancestors dined on dinosaurs when the chance arose (SN: 10/24/01). But fossils with precise preserved abdomen contents are extraordinarily uncommon (SN: 8/10/20). In truth, C. sauroktonos is simply the second extinct crocodyliform fossil with identifiable abdomen contents — and the primary to disclose a meal of dinosaur.
C. sauroktonos was about 2.5 meters lengthy — barely smaller than an grownup feminine American alligator — and lived between 104 million and 92.5 million years in the past in what’s now Queensland, Australia. Similarities between the creature’s cranium options and people of dwelling and extinct crocodyliforms recommend that it didn’t simply eat dinos. C. sauroktonos in all probability solid a large internet when it got here to searching for out prey.
As for the grisly contents of its intestine — together with a couple of ribs and bits of leg and arm bone — they signify the primary ornithopod ever present in Queensland’s Winton rock formation. The herbivorous dino might also be a brand new species, though it’s tough to inform from these few items, the workforce says.