Reuters “Revealed: the terrifying 9ft-long crocodile that walked upright” http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/20/revealed-the-terrifying-3m-long-crocodile-which-walked-like-a-human
米国のノース・カロライナ州で、ノース・カロライナ州立大学の古生物学者Lindsay Zanno*1、ノース・カロライナ自然科学博物館*2の古生物学者Vince Schneider*3らによって、約２億3100万年前の三畳紀に生きていた初期段階の鰐（crocodile）の化石が発見され、Carnufex carolinensisと名づけられた。陸上を二足歩行していたと見られ、体長は約３メートル、立った場合の身長（？）は約1.5メートル。
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 beasts. It was not aquatic and not a quadruped, instead prowling on two legs in the warm equatorial region that North Carolina was at the time.It lived alongside armoured plant-eating reptiles known as aetosaurs, early mammal relatives and other fierce predators such as the large, long-snouted, water-dwelling, four-legged phytosaurs.
Carnufex is one of the most primitive members of the broad category of reptiles called crocodylomorphs, encompassing the various forms of croc that have appeared on Earth.
“As one of the earliest and oldest crocodylomorphs, Carnufex was a far cry from living crocodiles. It was an agile, terrestrial predator that hunted on land,” Zanno said. “Carnufex predates the group that living crocodiles belong to.”
この記事には復元想像図が付されている。たしかに、こんな鰐に陸上でこんな鰐に追いかけられたら恐い。しかし、どのくらいの速度が出るのかはわからない。長い首を使って重心を前方にずらして、前のめりになって、長い尻尾でバランスを取りながら進んでいるようなので、それなりにスピードは出そうだけど、方向転換は容易ではなさそうだ。
Carnufex lived just before the appearance of the first dinosaurs, which started as modest creatures in the Triassic before becoming Earth’s dominant land animals. Zanno said Carnufex’s discovery underscores the notion that before dinosaurs became well established in North America, such crocs and their cousins filled the large predator roles.While the dinosaur lineage eventually produced the world’s largest terrestrial predators, it was the crocodiless and their cousins that typically were the Triassic tough guys. A group related to crocodiles called rauisuchians included large four-legged land predators up to 25 feet (about 8 meters) in length or more.
*1:https://bio.sciences.ncsu.edu/lindsay-zanno-paleontologist-announces-discovery/ See eg. http://naturalsciences.org/nature-research-center/directors/lindsay-zanno http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_Zanno
*2:http://www.naturalsciences.org/ See eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina_Museum_of_Natural_Sciences
*3:http://naturalsciences.org/research-collections/research-specialties/paleontology/vincent-schneider
