Razanandrongobe sakalavae snacking on a sauropod.
FABIO MANUCCI
In a study published yesterday (July 4) in PeerJ, paleontologists describe a new notosuchian, Razanandrongobe sakalava—nicknamed Razana—that predated, outsized, and perhaps out-savaged other dinosaurs of its kind.
GIOVANNI BINDELLINI
Natural History Museum of Milan paleontologists Cristiano Dal Sasso (left) and Simone Maganuco (right) sit with the jaws and teeth of Razana. They emphasize its crocodilian qualities: Dal Sasso points out its mandible while Maganuco gestures to its frontward nostrils.
“Like these and other gigantic crocs from the Cretaceous, Razana could outcompete even theropod dinosaurs, at the top of the food chain,” says Dal Sasso in a press release.
See C. Dal Sasso et al., “Razanandrongobe sakalavae, a gigantic mesoeucrocodylian from the Middle Jurassic of Madagascar, is the oldest known notosuchian,” PeerJ, doi:10.7717/peerj.3481, 2017.
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