Two swamp monster fossils from several million years ago were found in Texas.
According to a Texas Tech press release, scientists from the schools Paleontology Museum dug up the artifacts, and proclaimed the title: Machaeroprosopus lottorum.
The name is derived from the family with the last name Lott who occupy a ranch where the pieces were located in summer 2001 National Geographic reported Friday.
"We found them in an area we'd been excavating in," Bill Mueller, one of the authors of the study, and assistant curator of paleontology at the Museum of Texas Tech University said in a statement. "I think we've gotten four skulls out of that area already. Doug Cunningham found this specimen, and then we dug it up. When he found it, just the very back end of the skull was sticking out of the ground. The rest was buried. We excavated it and brought it into the museum to finish preparation," Mueller said in the statement. Mueller is also an assistant curator of paleontology at the Museum of Texas Tech.
The fossils' female species skull measured over three feet long, while the whole thing is 16 to 17 feet overall the press release reported. The male species is known to have been 17 to 18 feet. One also had 2-foot-long, or 0.6 meter nose.
The species slender teeth formation cause researchers to believe it sought fish to eat compared to larger animals.
"A phytosaur resembles a crocodile," Mueller said in the statement. "They had basically the same lifestyle as the modern crocodile by living in and around the water, eating fish, and whatever animals came to the margins of the rivers and lakes. But one of the big differences is the external nares, the nose, is back up next to its eyes instead of at the end of its snout," Mueller said in the statement.
