What a toothless, two-legged crocodile cousin reveals about life before dinosaurs dominated

Newly Discovered “Witch Croc” Reveals Dinosaur-Like Evolution in the Triassic

A newly described fossil from Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, belongs to the crocodile family tree, but unlike most crocodile-line archosaurs, it walked on two legs, had small arms, and a toothless beak.  Researchers from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and collaborating institutions described the species Labrujasuchus expectatus in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. This animal belongs to Shuvosauridae, a rare group of ancient cr…

What a toothless, two-legged crocodile cousin reveals about life before dinosaurs dominated

Triassic fossil reveals a beaked, bipedal reptile that looked like an ostrich dinosaur

The Late Triassic was full of animals that look almost familiar, right up until you place them on the evolutionary tree. One of the newest examples is Labrujasuchus expectatus, a lightly built, two-legged reptile with tiny forelimbs and a toothless beak, an animal that would not have looked out of place beside the ostrich-like dinosaurs of a much later age. It was not a dinosaur. Instead, Labrujasuchus belonged to the crocodile line of archosaur…