A newly identified prehistoric reptile from what is now New Mexico is drawing attention for looking a bit like a dinosaur while belonging to a very different family tree.
The oddball animal had a beak, no teeth, and tiny arms, and researchers say it was a distant relative of modern crocodiles, Scientific American reported.
Scientists studying fossils from a well-known Triassic quarry in New Mexico identified a new species, Labrujasuchus expectatus, in research published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The remains were uncovered in 2006, but closer analysis revealed subtle differences that set the animal apart from the two recognized North American species in the Shuvosauridae group.
Researchers said the creature lived about 212 million years ago and walked on two hind legs. Its bones resembled those of two previously known North American shuvosaurids, though they were not an exact match.
Alan Turner, a professor of anatomical sciences at Stony Brook University who led the team, said the fossil stood out because of its age and physical details, including differences in the humerus.
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The study described Labrujasuchus expectatus as a toothless, beaked reptile from the late Triassic that belonged to a distant crocodile-line lineage, not a direct ancestor of living crocs.
"[They're] definitely not direct ancestors to modern alligators and crocodiles," Turner explained to Scientific American. "You can think of them as like a very, very distant cousin. They split hundreds of millions of years ago from the group that eventually leads us to alligators and crocodiles. It's sort of a side branch."
Researchers still cannot say for sure what the reptile ate.
Turner said it may have been a meat eater and possibly even a scavenger. Birds can have beaks and still be predators, which is why he suspects this strange reptile may have been carnivorous, even without teeth.
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Finds such as this help scientists refine the picture of life on Earth before mammals and birds came to dominate modern ecosystems.
Even a single new species can show how diverse ancient reptiles were and how many evolutionary experiments were underway over 200 million years ago.
The discovery also reflects convergent evolution, in which animals can evolve similar body plans without being closely related.
Understanding how species changed over time helps scientists reconstruct ancient environments, extinction patterns, and the history of life on the planet. Fossil sites in the American Southwest can continue to yield new insights years after discoveries are first made.
"That's the thing I think I find the most interesting about an animal like L. expectatus," Turner said. "It's one more data point that we have in furthering these models about that important evolutionary process."
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