New prehistoric dinosaur-eating crocodile species found at fossil site in Texas

Dallas : Nearly 95 million years ago there was a species of crocodiles that used to feast on dinosaurs, finds new research. The scientists have found the fossil bones in the heart of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

Dubbed the Deltasuchus motherali, the fossils of new species of crocodile was found by a local teenager, Austin Motheral. He works with paleontoligists from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, who spent a decade excavating the bones.

On the basis of bite marks discovered on the fossilized bones of prey animals, it has been observed that they used to eat almost anything they wanted from the environment, including turtles and dinosaurs.

The findings were recently published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Deltasuchus motherali has been named after Austin Motheral who first uncovered the fossils of this particular crocodile with a small tractor when he was just 15 years old.

While most of Texas was covered by a shallow sea at the time, the Dallas-Fort Worth area was part of a large peninsula that jutted out from the northeast. The peninsula was a lush environment of river deltas and swamps that teemed with wildlife, including dinosaurs, crocodiles, turtles, mammals, amphibians, fish, invertebrates, and plants.