Jurassic-era crocodile fossils with T-rex teeth found in Madagascar

New Delhi : Fossils of a Jurassic-era crocodile have been found by scientists in Madagascar; it has teeth structure resembling to T-rex dinosaur. With the findings, a long gap in a million-year-long ghost lineage of Notosuchia seems to have been filled.

The fossil has been given name Razanandrongobe sakalavae and nick named as ‘Razana’.The meaning of the name is “giant lizard ancestor from Sakalava region.”

With teeth structure common to T Rex dinosaur, it has been concluded that the dinosaurs from that era mostly fed on dinosaur meat.

“Like these and other gigantic crocs from the Cretaceous, ‘Razana’ could outcompete even theropod dinosaurs, at the top of the food chain,” said Cristiano Dal Sasso, of the Natural History Museum of Milan in Italy.

“Its geographic position during the period when Madagascar was separating from other landmasses is strongly suggestive of an endemic lineage,” said Simone Maganuco from Natural History Museum of Milan.

“At the same time, it represents a further signal that the Notosuchia originated in southern Gondwana,” Maganuco said.

The research has been published in the journal PeerJ.