Meet the 'Carolina butcher', prehistoric croc walked on its hind legs
Paleontologists call terrifying fossilised creature the 'Carolina butcher'
Scientists said they had unearthed fossils in the US state of North Carolina of a land-dwelling crocodile that lived about 231 million years ago, walked upright on its hind legs and was a top land predator before the first dinosaurs appeared on the planet.
Transported back to the Triassic Period, what would a person experience upon encountering this agile, roughly 3-metre-long, 1.5-metre-tall beast with a long skull and blade-like teeth?
"Abject terror," said North Carolina State University paleontologist Lindsay Zanno, who led the research published in the journal Scientific Reports.
"Climb up the nearest tree," advised North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences paleontologist Vince Schneider.
The creature is named Carnufex carolinensis, meaning "Carolina butcher", for its menacing features.
It was a very early member of the crocodile lineage and was unlike today's examples.
It was not aquatic and not a quadruped, instead prowling on two legs in the warm equatorial region that the North Carolina area was at the time.