An ancient crocodilian has been named after the fictional Balrog creature in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series. The ancient 16-foot, 900-pound blunt-snouted dyrosaurid was given the name,
Anthracosuchus balrogus, in a new study from The University of Florida. The huge crocodilian was featured in a 2012 Smithsonian Channel documentary about
Titanoboa, a massive 58-foot python that also lived around 60 million years ago.
Anthracosuchus balrogus was unearthed from the same layer of rock as
Titanoboa in the Cerrejon coal mine of northern Colombia. Smithsonian has the full
Titanoboa documentary available on YouTube.