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Ancient 'Godzilla' Crocodile Discovered

Posted by Zonk on from the friendly-looking-critter dept.

SenseOfHumor writes "Paleontologists have discovered a huge crocodile which was a predator of large sea creatures. A Jurassic-age crocodile had the massive jaws and jagged teeth needed to hunt large sea prey, paleontologists say. The crocodile, nicknamed Godzilla, was nearly four metres long with a short snout like a T. rex, four fins and a vertical, fishlike tail." Photos and drawings are available at National Geographic, and more science at ScienceDaily.

11 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Gojira by joe_bruin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Clearly this proves Intelligent Design, because only God would make Godzilla, the holy lizard in His name.

  2. Cue the.... by Chickenofbristol55 · · Score: 5, Funny

    large crowd of screaming Japanese people!

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  3. Not that huge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How this could be a "huge" crocodile? wikipedia lists crocs bigger than that.

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

    1. Re:Not that huge by mchawi · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm glad I'm not the only one that had this thought. I've seen Steve Irwin wrestle crocs larger than that ;)

      Maybe it grows bigger if you're nice to it. Of course, maybe they're thinking 'if I drop a nuke on this I'd have Godzilla!'. Who ever knows with scientists...

  4. CRIKEY! by perlow · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Now mate, look what happens when I shove my whole body up this Jurrasic croc's cloaca. She gets really grumpy, But not as grumpy as my wife!"

  5. 4 meters? Godzilla? by ManyLostPackets · · Score: 4, Informative

    How about this one?, big as a school bus! http://www.supercroc.com/pressarticles/msnbc.htm

  6. Huge Crocodile! Nearly 4 meters long! by Anon.Pedant · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maybe the poster was so breathless from all the hype that they didn't notice that this HUGE Godzilla-like beast is SMALLER than modern crocodiles. Nile Crocodiles can be 5 meters long, while Saltwater Crocs can be over six meters. Revised headline: Paleontologists discover midget crocodile! -- Anonymous Pedant

    1. Re:Huge Crocodile! Nearly 4 meters long! by Artega+VH · · Score: 4, Informative

      Exactly. In fact the largest recorded Saltwater crocodile was almost 9 meters in length.

      The first thing I thought when I read this (and its been in regular news sites for a day and a bit) was "mmm thats pretty small" and its especially small when compared with SuperCroc (although there is an interesting clash of largest recorded sizes for salties between those two wikipedia articles)

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  7. We're used to old news... by Sebilrazen · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...but come on, this is just Prehistoric.

    --
    "There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
  8. Re:This was on Digg yesterday... by c_forq · · Score: 5, Insightful

    seriously, I read Slashdot for the comments. I heard about this probably 36 hours ago from National Geographic (who will be featuring it in their December issue). For almost any news on slashdot I have another site I read it on first. But I have been reading slashdot for probably 2 years (and posting for a few weeks now) because I think the comments posted here and the moderation system is far more valueable then just news reports. I'm fine with dupes, slow news, and bad editors as long as there is a good amount of intelligent commentors.

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  9. Re:Let them extract the DNA by Anon.Pedant · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can't be serious; these are 140 million year old fossils! These are rocks, and you can be sure they won't "find a few cells." Even DNA from mammoths that have been frozen for only 10 thousand years are fragmentary.
    (Or maybe I just don't get the joke.)