An artist’s impression of Confractosuchus sauroktonos attacking an ornithopod dinosaur. Image credit: Julius Csotonyi / White et al., doi: 10.1016/j.gr.2022.01.016.
SciNews has a story about a new Cretaceous crocodile. The animal, Confractosuchus saurokonos, lived about 95 million years ago in what is now Queensland, Austrailia. As part of the skeletal remains, well preserved gut contents were found. With some analysis, those contents were found to be parts of a juvenile ornithopod dinosaur. This discovery was published in the journal Gondwana Research.
The animal’s fossilized remains — a near-complete skull with dentition and postcranial skeleton missing the tail and hind limbs — were discovered on Elderslie Station, near the north western margins of the Winton Formation, in 2010.
“Confractosuchus sauroktonos represents only the second crocodyliform discovered from the Winton Formation,” said Dr. Matt White, a paleontologist with the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History and the Palaeoscience Research Centre at the University of New England, and his colleagues.
“The other, Isisfordia duncani, comprises multiple semi-articulated and partially complete skeletons.”
The researchers also found the partly digested remains of a juvenile ornithopod dinosaur in the crocodile’s stomach.
“Collectively, the ornithopod remains comprise three dorsal vertebrae, two sacral centra, three distal caudal centra, both proximal femora, left tibia, and several other elements; all presumably from a single individual,” they said.
“These gut contents oddly represent the first recorded skeletal remains of ornithopods from the Winton Formation and may represent a new species.”
