Ancient giant crocs saw our human ancestors as 'dinner'

A new species of crocodile that roamed the lakes of Africa alongside our ancient ancestors has been discovered by scientists.

The crocodile, which grew to lengths of up to 3.5m and 4.5m lived between 3 and 3.4 million years ago.

Researchers at the University of Iowa, USA, say the ancient reptile was the only crocodile in this part of modern-day Ethiopia, and could even have hunted our human ancestors.

Christopher Brochu worked on the study and said: "It was the largest predator in that ecosystem, more so than lions and hyenas, and the biggest threat to our ancestors who lived there during that time."

The ancient croc has been named Crocodylus lucivenator which means 'Lucy's hunter'.

Lucy is the name of the oldest and most complete skeleton of a human ancestor ever found, who also lived in the area.

"It's a near certainty this crocodile would have hunted Lucy's species," Christopher Brochu continued.

"Whether a particular crocodile tried to grab Lucy, we'll never know, but it would have seen Lucy's kind and thought: 'Dinner.'"

According to new research published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, Crocodylus lucivenator would've waited in the water ready to pounce on animals and humans looking for a drink.

While there were at least three other crocodile species just south in the region, known as the Eastern Rift Valley, the Lucy's hunter crocodile appeared to have this area to itself.

It had a large hump in the middle of its snout which is like the modern-day crocodile found in America but which isn't seen on crocodiles in the Nile in Africa today.

Scientists say research like this help us to understand more about the predators our ancestors had to deal with more than three million years ago.