Tens of millions of years ago, an apex predator resembling a giant crocodile stalked the humid freshwater floodplains of southern Patagonia. Measuring up to 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) long and weighing about 550 pounds (250 kilograms), it ate whatever it could catch. Including some dinosaurs.

Near the southern tip of South America, in Argentina, scientists recently discovered a skeleton — including the skull and jaws — of this hypercarnivore , an animal whose diet is at least 70% meat. They named it Kostensuchus atrox and described the reptile as a new species of peirosaurid crocodyliform, an ancient relative of modern alligators and crocodiles. This is the first crocodyliform found in Argentina’s Chorrillo Formation, which dates to about 70 million years ago, toward the end of the Cretaceo

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