SEE: Giant Crocodile Ruled Before Dinosaurs?

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One of the world's earliest and biggest crocodilian precursors were the landmass' top predator before Dinosaurs even existed. The newfound 231-million-year-old fossil would have been around three meters (nine feet) long when it was alive. It lived ashore, strolled upright, and cut through defensively covered reptiles and early warm blooded animal relatives with its bladelike teeth. In a study distributed in Scientific Reports not long from now, scientists named it Carnufex carolinensis, or the Carolina butcher.

The butcher's halfway skull, jawbone, some teeth, ribs, vertebrae, and a forelimb were uncovered in Late Triassic residue of thAe Carnian Pekin Formation in what's currently Chatham County, North Carolina. Since the skull was safeguarded in pieces, North Carolina State University's Lindsay Zanno and associates checked the individual bones utilizing a high-determination surface scanner to make a 3D remaking.

Here's the remade skull. The 3D surface models of skull bones are indicated in white, and the hazy areas are missing components recreated from close relatives:


Crocodile ancestors would have been pushed into secondary predator roles, the researchers noted.

Lindsay Zanno, of NC State University and the NC Museum of Natural Sciences said in a statement. "Predatory dinosaurs went on to fill these roles exclusively for the next 135 million years."

"As theropod dinosaurs started to make it big, the ancestors of modern crocs initially took on a role similar to foxes or jackals, with small, sleek bodies and long limbs," study co-author Susan Drymala, graduate student at NC State, said in the statement. "If you want to picture these animals, just think of a modern-day fox, but with alligator skin instead of fur."