Dyrosaurus

Dyrosaurus was an extinct genus of marine dyrosaurid crocodyliform from the Eocene of North Africa. It was a large animal, reaching 6 meters in size. The type species D. phosphaticus possessed slender jaws with numerous recurved teeth, indicative of a primarily fish diet (similar to the extant gharial). Dyrosaurus teeth have smooth enamel and are long and often sharp, helping it to hunt fast-moving prey. French paleontologist Auguste Pomel named the genus in 1894 for Djebel Dyr, a mountain near Tebessa in Algeria, where its fossil vertebrae were found in a phosphate mine. Other remains had been found earlier in another phosphate mine in Tunisia and described as Crocodylus phosphaticus Thomas, 1893, which became the type species.