With huge teeth and large eyes, Crassigyrinus scoticus was specially adapted to hunt in the coal swamps of Scotland and North America.
By piecing together fragments of an ancient skull, scientists have reconstructed the haunting face of a 330 million-year-old crocodile-like"tadpole" creature, revealing not only what it looked like but also how it may have lived.
Previous research has shown that C. scoticus was a tetrapod, a four-limbed animal related to the first creatures to transition from water to land. Tetrapods began appearing on Earth around 400 million years ago, when the earliest tetrapods started evolving from lobe-finned fishes. "In life, Crassigyrinus would have been around two to three metres [6.5 to 9.8 feet] long, which was quite big for the time," lead study author Laura Porro , a lecturer in cell and developmental biology at University College London, said in a statement ."It would probably have behaved in a way similar to modern crocodiles, lurking below the surface of the water and using its powerful bite to grab prey.
Although much more is known about C. scoticus, scientists are still puzzled by a gap near the front of the animal’s snout. According to Porro, the gap may indicate that C. scoticus had other senses to help it hunt. It may have had a so-called rostral organ that helped the creature detect electric fields, Porro said. Alternatively, C. scoticus might have had a Jacobson's organ, which is found in animals such as snakes and helps to detect different chemicals.
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