![The new Machimosaurus rex species was discovered in the Tunisian desert.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/ancient-croc1.jpg?quality=85&w=2400)
Paleontologists have found the remains of a colossal crocodile believed to be the biggest of its kind.
The newly discovered “Machimosaurus rex” species could have grown to more than 30-feet long and weighed about 6,000 pounds, National Geographic reports. The fossils, including a skull, belonging to the marine crocodile were found in the Tunisian desert in a 120-million-year-old rock, according to the magazine.
“This is a neat new discovery from a part of the world that hasn’t been well-explored for fossils,” University of Edinburgh paleontologist Stephen Brusatte, who was not involved with the new study, told National Geographic. “It would likely have been something of an ambush predator, hanging around in shallow water hunting turtles and fishes and maybe waiting for some land animals to come a little too close to the shore.”
More Must-Reads from TIME
- Eyewitness Accounts From the Trump Rally Shooting
- Politicians Condemn Trump Rally Shooting: ‘No Place for Political Violence in Our Democracy’
- From 2022: How the Threat of Political Violence Is Transforming America
- ‘We’re Living in a Nightmare:’ Inside the Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town
- Remembering Shannen Doherty , the Quintessential Gen X Girl
- How Often Do You Really Need to Wash Your Sheets?
- Welcome to the Noah Lyles Olympics
- Get Our Paris Olympics Newsletter in Your Inbox
Contact us at letters@time.com