Giant crocodile roamed with the dinosaurs

A giant crocodile with a bulging shield of thickened skin on its forehead lived among dinosaurs, a study reports. The reptile, which researchers are calling Shieldcroc, lived about 95 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period. A partial specimen suggests its skull was 5 feet long, said Casey Holliday, a paleontologist at the University of Missouri who led the study. "An animal with a head that big," he said, "is looking at a body 25 to 35 feet." Today's crocodiles seldom exceed 20 feet. Blood-vessel scars on the fossilized skull suggest the presence of a large shield on its forehead "to signal to mates or target adversaries," Holliday said. The findings, by Holliday and Nick Gardner, an undergraduate at Marshall University, in Huntington, W. Va., are reported in the journal PLoS One. The fossil was uncovered in Morocco and sold to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Shieldcroc is the earliest African ancestor of the modern crocodile, Holliday said. He said many more species of crocodiles once existed and that discovering ancient species may help explain why some went extinct while others survived. "We're finding that not only were crocodiles living in the water, but they were living on land and not only chasing animals, but also eating plants," he said. "Crocodiles were operating a whole suite of niches that they don't know today." NEW YORK TIMES