WWD: Thoracosaurus neocesariensis (Patreon)

One of the more unusual choices for this episode was the random insertion of a giant unnamed crocodilian that just appears to menace the lake shore. Supplementary material identifies this crocodilian as Deinosuchus, but there are a few issues with this. For one, Deinosuchus isn't known from the Maastrichtian, it's a strictly Campanian genus, and secondly, it is stated as being "one-ton", but Deinosuchus was much bigger than that. Also, it's portrayed as being bright, almost neon, orange, an utterly bizarre design choice for a swamp-dwelling ambush predator. The fact it's never seen doing anything besides floating and blinking as a disembodied head (literally, it was just a head prop) and never interacts on-screen with any other animal just adds to how out of place it was. The head anatomy also looks weird, with a rather gharial-like snout (rather than alligator-like) and rows scutes on the back of the head, which aren't known in any crocodilian.

Thoracosaurus was the largest known crocodyliform from the region; although it was no legendary behemoth, it grew to a respectable 15 feet in length, putting it up there with the largest verified American alligators. There are some unverified anecdotal reports of it being able to reach 25 feet in length, but these claims are unverifiable, questionable, and aren't from Hell Creek, so I won't include them here. In appearance it closely resembles modern gharials, although it is unrelated and represents a radiation of now-extinct eusuchians outside the grouping of living crocodilians (unlike Deinosuchus, which is believed to be a gigantic alligatoroid).