CARTERSVILLE, Ga. — Inside the Tellus Science Museum in Bartow County, in the fossil gallery, an ancient predator is lurking at the top of the food chain.
“Think about the size of that jaw. If he gets any bit of us, he’s taking it,” Ryan Roney said.
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Roney is the museum’s curator. He’ll never forget his first encounter with Deinosuchos schwimmeri.
“I walked in, and his gaping jaws are right at your face. That skull is bigger than you. That could snap me in half,” Roney told Channel 2’s Berndt Petersen.
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It snapped dinosaurs in half too, in Georgia. Paleontologists say that was 70 million years ago.
“If we were to travel back in time, don’t go next to the water,” Roney said.
As Channel 2 Action News reported in December, this is the first-ever replica of the 30-foot dinosaur-killing crocodilian, and the Tellus Museum is the only place on Earth where you can stare directly into its mouth.
The new exhibit is a fan favorite, especially for little ones like Seth Everson.
“I know that they can eat you,” the 5-year-old said.
Columbus State University Professor Dr. David Schwimmer—whom the beast is named for—researched the species for 40 years, and dug up some big chompers.
“Almost the size of the teeth in a T. rex,” Roney said.
Petersent asked Roney what he though would happen if they went toe to toe.
“Deinosuchus schwimmeri vs. Tyrannosaurus rex? One: That wouldn’t have happened. They lived five million years apart,” Roney said.
Still, Roney thinks T. rex was too big, even for the giant killer croc. But Deinosuchus is certainly the Peach State’s apex predator.
“In Appalachia, our part of North America, Deinosuchus was for sure the biggest troublemaker of the time,” Roney said.
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