A new species of crocodile which is considered to one of the oldest and the largest of its kind were found in North Carolina.

Researches described that dinosaurs were ruling our continent and ruled the scene. Carnufex carolinensis translates as “Carolina Butcher”. This crocodile have been a fierce predator 230 million years ago. It is 09 feet long and walks on hind legs.

This deadly crocodile was sitting in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. The fossil of this crocodile has been discovered a decade ago.

“When we got the bones out and prepared them, we found out that it was actually a really cool species, It was one of the oldest and largest members of crocodylomorph — the same group that crocodiles belong to — that we’ve ever seen. And that size was really surprising.” said Lindsay Zanno, assistant professor at North Carolina State University and lead author of the new research paper.

The other crocodile relatives were lower in the food chain and smaller in size. But the Carnufex carolinensis was the one of the fiercest animal around though they were many with same size.

“It was clearly a top predator, that’s a niche we didn’t know animals like this were filling.” said Assistant professor Zanno.

“We knew that there were too many top performers on the proverbial stage in the Late Triassic Period… Yet, until we deciphered the story behind Carnufex, it wasn’t clear that early crocodile ancestors were among those vying for top predator roles prior to the reign of dinosaurs in North America.”