“One of a kind” creature may have hunted like a pelican, paleontologists say.

A new prehistoric croc sporting an odd head “shield” has been found in Morocco, according to a study published Tuesday.

Dubbed ShieldCroc, the animal’s head appendage was surrounded by blood vessels and covered with a sheath like those seen in frilled dinosaurs, including Triceratops.

At 30 to 35 feet (9 to 11 meters) long, the river-dwelling monster would have preyed on other giant animals of the late Cretaceous, such as 13-foot-long (4-meter-long) coelacanths. But ShieldCroc—formally Aegisuchus witmeri—likely boasted relatively weak jaws, at least compared with those of today’s crocodiles.

“It’s fairly certain that it belonged to a group of crocodyliforms—including the flat-headed crocs—that had really thin, weak jaws and weak chin joints,” said researcher Casey Holliday, a paleontologist at the University of Missouri. Crocodyliforms are part of a group known as the crocodilians, which includes modern-day alligators, caimans, and more. (See alligator and crocodile pictures.)

“So they weren’t wrestling dinosaurs on the water’s edge. They would have been quick, snap feeders waiting for prey to come by and then grabbing it and swallowing it with large, basket-shaped mouths—something like a pelican would do,” said Holliday, who co-authored the new study in the journal PLoS ONE.

(See “Giant Prehistoric Croc Found Near World’s Biggest Snake.”)

ShieldCroc’s Headpiece for Show?

A piece of ShieldCroc’s skull landed in Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum in the early 2000s, but Holliday and colleagues have only recently studied the specimen and its odd headpiece.

It’s difficult to determine what purpose the shield served when the animal lived, some 99 million years ago, Holliday noted.

But after rigorous evaluation of the fossil and studies of comparative behaviors with modern crocodilians, scientists suggest the shield may have helped ShieldCroc regulate its temperature and communicate with other ShieldCrocs.