This giant bipedal crocodile ruled Earth before the dinosaurs.

[Aethon]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/03/19/before-dinosaurs-the-giant-carolina-butcher-was-a-north-american-terror/

Edited March 20, 2015 by Aethon

[Dkmdlb]

At nine feet long and walking on its hind legs...

9 feet long isn't giant for a crocodile. Just estimating from the picture, it looks like it would have stood up to maybe shoulder height or a little larger on an adult man.

[lajoswinkler]

It has two strong hands.

[Neil1993]

It has two strong hands.

This would make it vastly superior to the T-Rex. It would be more capable of greeting others of its kind with a firm but friendly handshake

[Vanamonde]

9 feet long isn't giant for a crocodile.

I believe that was a pretty big animal for its time, though.

[Aethon]

9 feet long isn't giant for a crocodile.

Giant in comparison to most animals at that time.

[SpaceExplorer]

I still wouldn't want to meet that in a back alley at night, no matter how small it is. Cool how paleontologists are still finding new animals and species even to this day!

[magnemoe]

Yes 3 meters is not very long for crocodiles.

More interesting was the bipedal walking independent from dinosaurs? If so add another to the short list of bipedal creatures, dinosaurs / birds and humans is the success stories.

Know about another ape who was bipedal however it was to pick fruit on an isolated island and once it got an land bridge they was snacks.

[Tommygun]

Sometimes extinction is a good thing.

[White Owl]

Didn't the ninja turtles fight him in one episode?

[KerikBalm]

Raisuchians, and other "pseudosuchians" (its sort of a misnomer because the group includes real crocodilians) are already well known... this doesn't change much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rauisuchia

This one got quite big:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saurosuchus

[Camacha]

It looks a lot taller than a regular crocodile than modern ones, so giant seems to apply. Why would you guys only look at length?

[Special Agent Sigvan]

God bless nuclear weaponry or I'd be scared that thing would come back.

[Scotius]

Come on...nukes? Against animals? We have to actively protect tigers, lions and crocodiles - or else people would murder them into extinction in one generation. We don't need any advanced weaponry to eradicate other species. Our brain, multipurpose hands and greed\stupidity is enough.

[-Velocity-]

That thing doesn't look like it would balance on its back feet.

[magnemoe]

That thing doesn't look like it would balance on its back feet.

Agree, From the skeleton it looked like it would walk on all four, perhaps run on just the back legs, tail might also have more meat than the reconstruction for balance.

[Technical Ben]

Come on...nukes? Against animals? We have to actively protect tigers, lions and crocodiles - or else people would murder them into extinction in one generation. We don't need any advanced weaponry to eradicate other species. Our brain, multipurpose hands and greed\stupidity is enough.

One of the silly things in Pacific Rim, was less the robots, and more how a (warning spoiler!!!, though one mention in the opening credits)... creature could survive 1 or more nukes at point blank range.

[-Velocity-]

Agree, From the skeleton it looked like it would walk on all four, perhaps run on just the back legs, tail might also have more meat than the reconstruction for balance.

Maybe it only accelerated on two feet, like a motorcycle doing a wheelie

I'm kind of joking, but kind of not... cold-blooded animals have to depend more on sudden bursts of speed than warm-blooded animals do. Maybe it was evolving towards true bipedalism but found some happy medium between. If there weren't "happy mediums" between quadrapedalism and bipedalism, bipedalism probably couldn't evolve.

Edited March 23, 2015 by |Velocity|

[Scotius]

Iguanodonts and hadrosaurs did exactly that. Usually they maintained quadripedal stance, but they switched to bipedalism when they needed speed - in case of predator attack for example. Bipedalism is taxing to a body, but it is efficient mode of locomotion. Take a look at us, humans - we are well suited for long distance running at steady pace. Only few other species (some dogs for example) can keep up with us. Some african natives still hunt this way - they pursue their prey relentlessly for hours, to complete exhaustion until it can't move anymore.

[TMS]

It has two strong hands.

And cuticles to die for...

[tater]

Yeah, doesn't look like a habitual biped, more like capable of bipedal locomotion.