An artist's rendering of the confractosuchus sauroktonos (Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum/Instagram)
A brand new species of crocodile relationship again to the Cretaceous interval has been found in Queensland, Australia, and its final meal was a younger dinosaur, scientists say.
The fossilized bones of a confractosuchus sauroktonos have been excavated in 2010 from a sheep station close to the Winton Formation, a geological rock mattress that's about 95 million years previous.
Contained in the abdomen of the two.5 metre-long crocodile, scientists recognized the partly digested remnants of a younger ornithopod, in response to a paper naming the brand new species printed within the scientific journal Gondwana Analysis on February 11.
That is the primary proof of a crocodile preying on a dinosaur in Australia, the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, which made the invention, mentioned in a press release.
The crocodile pattern, which was initially preserved in a siltstone mass, had been partially crushed. Nevertheless, the harm revealed numerous small bones from the skeleton of a small Cretaceous creature.
Scientists used X-ray and CT scanning applied sciences to find the bones contained in the crocodile specimen, in addition to ten months of laptop processing to supply a 3D reconstruction of the bones.
With 35 per cent of the freshwater crocodile preserved, researchers have been capable of get better a near-complete cranium of the animal. Whereas they have been unable to categorise the younger dinosaur inside its abdomen, they described it as a juvenile weighing almost 1.7 kilos.
The crocodile had killed the animal, or foraged it quickly after its demise, the press assertion added.
Such a discovery is "extraordinarily uncommon, as solely a handful of examples of dinosaur predation are recognized globally," the press assertion mentioned.
"Whereas Confractosuchus wouldn't have specialised in consuming dinosaurs, it might not have missed a straightforward meal, such because the younger ornithopod stays present in its abdomen," Dr Matt White, an affiliate on the museum who led the analysis, mentioned within the press assertion.
"It's possible dinosaurs constituted an vital useful resource within the Cretaceous ecological meals internet.
"Given the dearth of comparable international specimens, this prehistoric crocodile and its final meal will proceed to supply clues to the relationships and behaviours of animals that inhabited Australia tens of millions of years in the past."
The confractosuchus sauroktonos is the second crocodile that has been named from the Winton Formation. The rock mattress has uncovered quite a few scientific discoveries lately, together with a 96-million-year-old pterosaur in October 2019.
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