A new Cretaceous species of crocodile has been discovered in Queensland, Australia, and its last meal was a young dinosaur, scientists say.
The fossilized bones of one confractosuchus sauroktonos were found in an excavation carried out in 2010 in a geological basin dating back about 95 million years.
Inside the stomach of a 2.5 meter long crocodile, scientists located the remains after the digestion of a young dinosaur.
This is the first evidence that the crocodile was a dinosaur predator, said the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, which made the discovery.
The scientists used X-ray scanning and computed tomography technologies to locate the bones inside the crocodile sample, as well as ten months of computer processing to create a three-dimensional bone reconstruction.
With 35% of the freshwater crocodile preserved, the researchers were able to retrieve an almost complete skull of the animal.
While they could not classify the young dinosaur in his stomach, they described him as a young man who weighed almost 1.7 kilograms.
The crocodile had killed the animal or was looking for food immediately after its death, the spokeswoman added, adding that such a discovery was “extremely rare, as only a few examples of dinosaurs becoming prey are known worldwide.”
CNN
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