They had teeth the size of bananas, were as long as buses and limousines, and prey on dinosaurs that feed by their waterways.
These are one of the findings presented in a new study announced this week on an enormously old animal called the ‘terror crocodile’, or Deinosuchus.
The study, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, found that the Deinosuchus, a tribe of giant crocodilians from North America, grew to 33 feet tall and “was the largest carnivore in its ecosystem,” in the late Cretaceous. about 75 to 82 million years ago.
Adam Cossette, a vertebrate paleobiologist who led the study, said in an email Tuesday that although it was difficult to determine its average size because there were so few known specimens, “the specimens we have are all SINGLE. ”
Dr. Cossette, of the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University, said large specimens were 30 to 35 feet long and weighed about 8,000 pounds. For comparison, he said a large American alligator today is about 12 to 13 feet long, weighs about 700 to 800 pounds and has teeth about three inches long at the tip of its snout.
He also said that the ancient reptiles had a large enough head and strong enough jaws to feed on dinosaurs that lived among them.
““Deinosuchus was a giant that must terrorize dinosaurs that came to the edge of the water to drink,” he said in a statement. “Until now, the full animal was unknown. These new specimens we examined revealed a bizarre, monstrous predator. ”
In addition to killing dinosaurs, the animals, because of their size, are likely prey on just about anything that went their way. Researchers found multiple bite marks on turtles and dinosaur bones.
They also found that at least three species of the Deinosuchus roamed over what is now the United States and Mexico. Two species lived in the West, from Montana to northern Mexico, and another species lived along the Atlantic coast, from New Jersey to Mississippi.
The study said that despite the species’ name, meaning “terrorist crocodile”, the creatures were more closely related to alligators. But because of an “enormous skull” they did not look like crocodiles or alligators.
The snout was long and wide “but inflated at the front around the nose in a way not seen in another crocodile, alive or extinct,” according to the researchers, with an alternate spelling of crocodile.
The reason for his enlarged nose is not known, the researchers said. They also do not know why the animal had two large holes at the tip of its snout, in front of its nose.
“These holes are unique to Deinosuchus,” said Dr. Cossette. “Further research into completion will hopefully help us unpick this mystery.”
His research colleague, Christopher Brochu, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Iowa, said the fossils showed how crocodiles were “not ‘living fossils’ that have not changed since the age of dinosaurs.”
“They have evolved just as dynamically as any other group,” he said in the statement.
“The first ancestors of the American alligator, such as Deinosuchus, were bizarre and unlike anything we see in the modern crocodilian species of today,” said Dr. Cossette in the email. “Crocodylia’s evolutionary history is far more fascinating than meets the eye.”
Mark A. Norell, the curator and chairman of the paleontology division of the American Museum of Natural History, said the study had many new findings, particularly about early inflation at the end of the skull, the weight and size of the animal, and the shape of its skull.
And Dr. Norell said there was much more to learn because the fossils of the animals remained rare, undercollected and understudied. “Mostly their collection and study is an afterthought,” he said, “because most of the work done on these formations and deposits is dominated by dinosaurs.”
