http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40492978
Researchers have described new fossils belonging to an extinct crocodile-like creature that had a set of serrated teeth like those of a T. rex.
The animal was a top predator in Madagascar 170 million years ago, around the time dinosaurs roamed Earth. Its huge jaw and serrated teeth suggest that, like T. rex, it fed on hard animal tissue such as bone and tendon. It appears to be the earliest and biggest representative of a group of croc-like animals called Notosuchians.
The animal's scientific name is Razanandrongobe sakalavae, which means "giant lizard ancestor from Sakalava region".
Razanandrongobe sakalavae, a gigantic mesoeucrocodylian from the Middle Jurassic of Madagascar, is the oldest known notosuchian (open, DOI: 10.7717/peerj.3481) (DX)
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday July 10 2017, @02:09PM (3 children)
It does make you wonder.
If humans *had* been around at the time of such beasts, we would have been prey and not had time to evolve defences or the intelligence, most likely.
Only the extinction of species like this made our lives easy enough that local predators were drastically dialled down, and we were able to team up to take down the large plodding things that were left.
I mean... we were around, and were prey, and didn't evolve until long after they were gone, just in an unrecognisable ancestral form.
But it makes you wonder what would have come out as top-dog if the meteor hadn't hit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @02:17PM (1 child)
Probably cockroaches. They were top dog then, and they still are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @02:48PM
Cockroaches are not apex predators, so they can't be "top dog".
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday July 11 2017, @08:27AM
Humans are still being eaten by crocodiles today. I would also think that whatever eventually evolved into humans had to be around back then, most likely too small to be common prey for such beasts with a good chance they even scavenged upon the remains of its kills.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @03:17PM
I had always thought dinos and the plants of that era were huge. Now I find out T-rex was crocodile sized and thus everything else was super tiny. I guess that sort of makes sense and all the pictures are from the viewpoint of ants, but boy was I mislead as a kid!
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday July 10 2017, @05:59PM (1 child)
Madagascar is famous for having strange evolutionary offshoots of animals. It's a very large island but its conditions mean its resident animals face radically different conditions there and are isolated from others of their kind.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 10 2017, @10:01PM
According to the BBC article Madagascar was part of Gondwana at the time, so a supercontinent.
Gondwana split up into South America, New Zealand, Australia, Africa, Madagascar and some other land masses. It was pretty huge at the time, extending from the South Pole to almost the Equator.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 11 2017, @02:08AM
So this crocodile thing was the tooth fairy for T-rexes. Glad I didn't draw that short straw.