This illustration shows Deinosuchus from bone to flesh.
Tyler Stone
Let’s turn the clock back millions of years to a time when crocodiles lived as long as buses in America. A new study of fossils of Deinosuchus has revealed more details about what these mind-boggling predators looked like and how they behaved.
Deinosuchus, which can be translated as “terrible crocodile” or “terror crocodile,” ate dinosaurs, notes on a paper published in late July in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. The massive animals lived between 75 million and 82 million years ago and would have been at the top of the feed chain.
“Until now, the entire animal was unknown. New specimens revealed a bizarre, monstrous predator with teeth the size of bananas,” lead author Adam Cossette said in a release from magazine publisher Taylor & Francis on Monday. Cossette is a vertebrate paleontologist at the New York Institute of Technology.
These fossil specimens have given researchers a glimpse into the mouths of Deinosuchus.
Adam Cossette
Cossette and paleontologist Christopher Brochu at the University of Iowa studied cranial fossils and evidence of bite marks to build a more complete picture of Deinosuchus, which was more related to alligators than crocodiles.
The paper helps to clarify three different known species of Deinosuchus: Deinosuchus hatcheri and Deinosuchus riograndensis (which ran from Montana to northern Mexico) and Deinosuchus swimmeri (from New Jersey to Mississippi).
While Deinosuchus’ reputation as a terrifying predator is now sealed, the beast remains mysterious in many ways. The researchers marked two large holes on his snout that had an as-yet-unknown function.
“It was a strange animal,” Brochu said. “It shows that crocodiles are not ‘living fossils’ that have not changed since the age of dinosaurs. They have evolved just as dynamically as any other group.”
The new concept of Deinosuchus fits well with some other recent scientific insights into extinct crocodile and gator siblings. Researchers found a old crocodile running on two legs and traced de disappearance of massive Australian crocs following fires and habitat loss.
If you think today’s alligators are intimidating, then you can at least take comfort in knowing that Deinosuchus is not advancing the waterways of the modern world. “Deinosuchus was a giant who had to terrorize dinosaurs who came to the edge of the water to drink,” Cossette said. But that’s all in the past.
