Terrifying prehistoric RUNNING CROCODILE could sprint on two legs to hunt dinosaurs for breakfast, footprints reveal

After examining fossilized footprints, scientists think they have found an extinct species of crocodile that formerly walked on two legs.

Researchers have been astonished by the discoveries made from the trails of around 100 footprints discovered in South Korea’s Jinju Formation.

The set of 18–24 cm long indentations that were left behind between 110 and 120 million years ago have been the subject of ongoing analysis.

The prehistoric footprints were created in what scientists assume to be the muddy earth around a lake, and they have been preserved to an impeccable degree.

The multinational group of scientists thinks their discoveries have changed our understanding of crocodiles.

According to the team’s extensive investigation, ancient crocodiles may have been able to “run like an ostrich or a T. rex.”

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According to Martin Lockley, a lecturer at the University of Colorado, crocodiles are often thought of as passive creatures who spend their days relaxing beside rivers or on the banks of the Nile in Costa Rica, the BBC said.

“No one thinks automatically If this [monster] could run like a T. rex or an ostrich, I wonder what it would look like.

Footprints are the only indication of what the species known as Batrachopus grandis looked like because no actual remnants of the animal have been discovered to yet.

Crucially, however, their prints resemble those of the Jurassic-era Batrachopus crocodiles, despite the fact that these older animals had smaller feet and obviously moved on all fours.

“We can see all the digits, all the ridges in the skin – just as if you were looking at your hands,” exclaimed Professor Kyung Soo Kim, who led the research team and is from South Korea’s Chinju National University of Education.

“They walked in a straight line and passed a sobriety test because they put one foot in front of the other. Additionally, no front footprints are present.

“Our trackways are very narrow-looking – more like a crocodile balancing on a tightrope.”

“When combined with the lack of any tail-drag marks, it became clear that these creatures were moving bipedally,” he said.

“They moved similarly to many dinosaurs, although dinosaurs did not leave the tracks. Walking on their toes are dinosaurs and their bird offspring.

“Crocodiles walk on the flat of their feet leaving clear heel impressions, like humans do.”

Scientists have noted that the smaller toes are really on the inside of the foot, yet the footprint indentations in the rock plainly reveal four toes on each foot.

With its razor-sharp teeth, Batrachopus grandis, which measured around 1,000 pounds, or half a tonne, would devour anything it could grab, including dinosaurs.

Its legs were the same length as ours, and it was about 13.1 feet long.

The skin-impressed footprints revealed that, in contrast to contemporary crocodiles, they possessed chunky, non-webbed toes and scales resembling those of crocodiles.

Other scholars have argued against the idea that the footprints belong to a bipedal crocodile species because of this latter trait and other aspects of the prints; many of them want additional proof.

“Watch any videos of living crocs and the rotation of their feet when they’re galloping: it’s outwards, not inwards towards the midline of the trackway,” Phil Manning, a palaeontologist at the University of Manchester, told the BBC.

He clarified that the tracks seemed “dinosaurian to me, but whether it’s a croc, unfortunately, we just don’t have the fossil bones to tell us.”

“Modern crocodiles have at least some webbing between toes in their back feet, whereas these tracks don’t appear to have any,” continued Michaela Johnson of the University of Edinburgh.

But, she admitted that the latest research does prove that they were made by a crocodylomorph (the large ancestor of modern crocodiles.)

It was previously believed after finding them in 2012 that they were from a kind of flying dinosaur known as a pterosaur.

Professor Lockley said: “The discovery of these tracks solved the whodunnit mystery.”

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“Fossil crocodile tracks are quite rare in Asia, so finding an abundance of nearly one hundred footprints was extraordinary,” palaeontologist Dr Anthony Romilio from the University of Queensland added.

“These fossils are spectacular, they even have the fine details of the toe-pads and scales on their soles preserved.”

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