Paleontologists in New Mexico have just dug up a two-legged, beak-mouthed reptile that looks almost exactly like a small dinosaur — except it lived more than a hundred million years before any dinosaur evolved that body plan, and it wasn't a dinosaur at all, but a distant cousin of modern crocodiles (opens in new tab)

In the spring of 2026, a team of paleontologists led by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County formally described a new species of reptile from a quarry in northern New Mexico. The animal walked on two legs. It had a toothless beak. Its arms were small and held close to its body. Its […]