Ancient super crocodile fossil found in museum drawer after 100 years

Remains of a long-forgotten species have been discovered in a museum drawer in Scotland. Live Science reports the beast, a dolphin-shaped crocodilian "super predator," was able to eat other species its size and larger.

The animal is named Tyrannoneustes lythrodectikos, Greek for "blood-biting tyrant swimmer." Sounds pretty friendly, doesn't it? The creature lived 165 million years ago, according to vertebrate paleontologist Mark Young. It featured enlarged teeth with serrated edges, and a jaw that evolved to open wider, allowing it to swallow smaller prey whole.

The area the fossil was first discovered, in central Europe, was once covered in a shallow sea. Originally found between 1907 and 1909, the fossil has been lost in a drawer at the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow for nearly 100 years.

There are no modern descendents of the animal. Instead, it's a member of an extinct family of marine crocodiles.