National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Dino-Era Fossil Reveals Two-Footed Croc Relative


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The body structure of Effigia okeeffeae, a crocodile ancestor that lived in the time of the dinosaurs, suggests that it walked on two feet and resembled birdlike dinosaurs. Scientists gained these new insights after rediscovering a long-hidden Effigia fossil in a New York museum.

Illustration by Sterling J. Nesbitt of the American Museum of Natural History and
Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory