Suchomimus was a theropod dinosaur that lived in the Lower Cretaceous (about 120 million years ago) in what is now Niger, Africa. ‘Suchomimus’ literally means ‘crocodile mimic’.

History: Suchomimus was first discovered in 1997 by a team led by Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago. The best specimen is an incomplete skeleton lacking a skull. Fortunately, the same locality produced a partial skull and several individual bones, so it was possible to reconstruct a composite skeleton.

Characteristics: Like many theropods, Suchomimus was large, at least 30 feet long. In contrast to most theropods, the skull of Suchomimus was extremely thin and had a low profile, as our Suchomimus toy shows. Its jaws were long and slender, and contained a total of about 120 conical teeth that did not resemble the blade-like teeth of most theropods.