One of the largest and oldest crocodile relatives was discovered in North Carolina. The 9-foot-tall creature once roamed what is now North Carolina about 230 million years ago, before dinosaurs arrived on the scene.

Carnufex carolinensis walked through the warm, lush and wet region on its hind legs. It most likely preyed on armored reptiles and early reptiles in its environment, according to researchers.

Researchers first described the species, which translates to “Carolina Butcher,” in reports on Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. The species was named Carnufex, which means “butcher” in Latin, because of its skull and teeth; its teeth resemble blades, which were most likely used to rip the flesh off the bones of prey, and its long skull resembles a knife. Lead author of the new research paper and University of North Carolina assistant professor Lindsay Zanno said that calling the creature “butcher” seemed like an “appropriate way to get that into the minds of people,” according to Live Science. 

The Carnufex carolinensis fossil was actually discovered more than a decade ago, but its bones have been resting in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences since its discovery. Zanno said that when they prepared the bones, they discovered that it was “actually a really cool species.” And it was one of the oldest and largest of the crocodylomorph group ever to be discovered.

She called its size “surprising.” Most crocodile relatives were smaller and lower on the food chain at the time standing at roughly the size of a fox as reported by Washington Post. But this predator stood on its hind legs above the rest and was a serious threat. Zanno said that the creature was definitely a “top predator” and this is “a niche we didn’t know animals like this were filling.”

Zanno and her team found portions of the creature’s arm bone, spine and skull while digging and researching in Pekin Formation in Chatham County, N.C. The sediments were deposited during the late Triassic Period, when the area was still connected to Pangaea and was near the Earth’s equator. Zanno said that dinosaurs were not “showing up in this ecosystem,” or around the equator, at that time.

This could be a “sampling artifact” or it could be because the bones of dinosaurs have yet to be discovered in that area. She added that as far as scientists are aware, they “weren’t there.” The absence of dinosaurs could be the reason why meat eaters like Carnufex were so large.