Australian and American paleontologists first described the fossil of a crocodile, in the abdominal cavity of which, here's a surprise, there were the remains of food, that is, a dinosaur. As shown by further study, scientists are dealing with a previously undescribed Cretaceous crocodile species, which they called the "dinosaur killer" - Confractosuchus sauroktonos.

Judging by the features of the femur of the eaten dinosaur, it was a representative of ornithopods - a group of ornithischian dinosaurs. Examination of the skeleton indicates that the crocodile most likely preyed on a baby dinosaur. This is evidenced by the small body weight of the ornithopod at death, which was estimated at about 1-1.7 kilograms. But it's also possible that paleontologists have encountered a previously undescribed species. Further study will show how it really is.

When eating a dinosaur, the crocodile broke one of his hips in half and left a mark of his tooth on it. It appears to have handled prey in a manner similar to modern crocodiles, which reduce the size of their prey by dismembering or fragmenting the bones to facilitate swallowing. Although the small size of the ornithopod could also contribute to swallowing it whole.

For unknown reasons, the crocodile died shortly after the meal. The partially digested dinosaur in his stomach was petrified along with the hunter.

Dinosaur bones were found to be too fragile to be extracted from rocks. The researchers had to scan the crocodile's abdomen using CT scans and then create 3D digital models. Ornithopod weighed about 1.7 kilograms.

The tail of the fossil was not preserved, but paleontologists managed to find well-preserved hind limbs, part of the pelvis, skull and some other bones. In length, the predator could exceed 2.5 meters and probably could grow even more.

However, the result of careful examination of the well-preserved skull of C. sauroktonos suggests that the crocodile was not a predator that specialized only in small ornithopods or dinosaurs. After all, it is possible that his last meal was already dead when it was found. But scientists suggest that the ancient crocodile could even hunt prey that was larger than itself. The unpretentiousness in food is also indicated by the varied diet of phylogenetically close crocodile species.

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