Don’t Mess With Pissarrachampsa

Baurusuchidae is a group of extinct Crocodyliformes with peculiar, dog-faced skulls, hypertrophied canines, and terrestrial, cursorial limb morphologies.

That is scientist-speak for terrestrial, dog-faced crocodiles well-adapted to running down prey and tearing into their victims with big, sharp teeth. Even better, these creatures lived alongside — and probably occasionally fed on — dinosaurs.

Scientists have recently added a new creature to this list, called the Pissarrachampsa sera.  This predator lived during the latter half of the Cretaceous in what is now Brazil, and is represented by two skulls — one more complete than the other. The better skulls is quite impressive. The basic, underlying croc structure is there, but is modified into a shorter, stouter shape, and the size of the teeth differs throughout the jaws. This was a crocodile with big canine-like fangs at the front of the jaw.

Below is an illustration of what the creature may have looked like:

See the original article here.