New Baby Dinosaur Species Discovered! Prey to Ancient Crocodile

We usually think of dinosaurs as the kings of the Earth, devouring other, smaller creatures or being large enough to keep other predators at bay. Yet now, scientists have discovered a brand new dinosaur that was devoured by a now-extinct member of the crocodile family.

The fossils of the baby dinosaur were found in what is now known as the Grand Staircase Escalante-National Munument in southern Utah. It roamed the Earth during the late Cretaceous period, toward the end of the age of the dinosaurs. It most likely ate plants, and is probably a previously unrecognized species of a small ornithopod dinosaur.

What did the researchers find exactly? They discovered a large number of tiny bits of dinosaur bones in groups at four different locations within the Utah park. Leading paleontologists believed that crocodyliforms, an ancient ancestor of the crocodile, had fed on the baby dinosaurs which ranged between three to six feet in length. They found evidence of bite marks on bone joints, as well as a crocodyliform tooth still embedded in a dinosaur femur.

The findings themselves are significant since dinosaurs have long been depicted as the dominant species on Earth. Yet the fossils clearly show that this is not the case.

Clint Boyd, one of the researchers, said in a press release, "The traditional ideas you see in popular literature are that when little baby dinosaurs are either coming out of a nesting grounds or out somewhere on their own, they are normally having to worry about the theropod dinosaurs, the things like raptors or, on bigger scales, the T. Rex."

Instead of dinosaurs eating dinosaurs, though, it turns out that crocodyliforms also preyed on the babies. According to the fossil record, they weren't much bigger than their prey, either. Researchers estimate that they were only a little over six feet in length.

What is perhaps most exciting, though, is the fact that a new species was discovered over the course of the study. By using diagnostic cranial material, scientists found that the baby dinosaur prey was newly discovered. The details of this finding will be published soon in another paper.

The current findings are published in the journal PLOS One.