Terrifying prehistoric RUNNING CROCODILE could sprint on two legs to hunt dinosaurs for breakfast, footprints reveal
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SCIENTISTS believe they have discovered an ancient form of crocodile that used to run on two legs after analysing fossilised footprints. The findings from the tracks of almost one hundred footprints found in the Jinju Formation in South Korea have left researchers shocked.
![[An artist's impression of the Batrachopus grandis]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/110-120-million-years-ago-961273514.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Analysis has been underway on the set of 18 to 24cm-long indentations that were left behind between 110 and 120 million years ago. The prehistoric footprints have been perfectly preserved after being made in what scientists believe was the muddy ground surrounding a lake.
![[Nearly a hundred of these 18-24cm-long indentations were left in rocks in South Korea]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/110-120-million-years-ago-961273523.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
The international team of researchers believe that their findings have altered what we know about crocodiles. After thorough analysis, it is now thought by the team that ancient crocodiles could "run like an ostrich or a T. rex.". Martin Lockley, a professor at the University of Colorado told the BBC: "People tend to think of crocodiles as animals that don't do very much; that they just laze around all day on the banks of the Nile or next to rivers in Costa Rica.
![[Researchers believe the tracks belong to a crocodile species that walked on two legs]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/110-120-million-years-ago-961273515.jpg?strip=all&w=627)
"Nobody automatically thinks I wonder what this [creature] would be like if it was bipedal and could run like an ostrich or a T. rex.". No physical remains of the creature that has been named Batrachopus grandis have yet been found so footprints are the only clues as to what they were like.
But crucially, these prints are similar to those of the Batrachopus crocodiles that lived during the Jurassic though these older creatures clearly walked on all fours and had smaller feet. Professor Kyung Soo Kim from South Korea's Chinju National University of Education who led the research team excitedly said: "We can see all the digits, all the ridges in the skin - just as if you were looking at your hands.
![[The indentations were left in what was thought to be mud that surrounded a lake in the Early Cretaceous period]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/110-120-million-years-ago-961273574.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
