Shattered crocodile. Formally, Confractosuchus. It was discovered in Australia when a bulldozer clearing a boulder broke a stone into pieces. Exposed portions of the broken-up rock made clear that fossils were inside, but there was no immediate sign that this discovery would later reveal an unprecedented snapshot of life from the Cretaceous Period.
But one section of the fossil puzzle gave them trouble. Iron-rich stone surrounding the bones made it difficult to get good X-ray images. So the researchers decided to try another approach.
They sent the mystery chunk to chemist Joseph Bevitt of the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering in Sydney, who specializes in using subatomic neutron particles to image ancient objects. Along with the expected croc bones, Bevitt discovered one that looked like a dinosaur leg bone. It was in the portion of rock where the crocodile’s stomach cavity would have been.
“When I saw the neutron result and the little dino femur, I was shaking with shock,” Bevitt says, “both in awe and doubt with what we had seen.”
2023-11-02 07:00:00
Link from www.sciencenews.org