Crocodiles’ ancient ancestors may have walked on two legs
Researchers identified a series of 9-inch-long prints as belonging to an extinct ancestor of the modern crocodile. The animal appeared to walk on two feet. (Anthony Romilio, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia/)More than 100 million years ago, an ancestor of today’s alligators and crocodiles wandered through present-day South Korea on its hind limbs, scientists announced June 11 in the journal Scientific Reports. The researchers identified a series of 9-inch-long prints as belonging to an ancient crocodylomorph, a group that includes living crocodilians (alligators, crocodiles, and other similarly-sized reptiles) and their extinct relatives. The tracks were all created by the animal’s back feet, indicating that it had a two-legged gait.“Here in one site we have the first really definitive evidence of bipedal crocodiles,” says Martin Lockley, a paleontologist at the University of Colorado Denver and coauthor of the new findings. “These animals are always walking in a narrow trackway, one...