Mourasuchus

Mourasuchus
Temporal range: Mid-Late Miocene (Friasian-Huayquerian),
16–5.3 Ma[1]
Skull of Mourasuchus pattersoni
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Archosauromorpha
Clade: Archosauriformes
Order: Crocodilia
Family: Alligatoridae
Subfamily: Caimaninae
Genus: †Mourasuchus
Price 1964
Species
  • †M. amazonensis Price 1964
  • †M. atopus Langston 1966
  • †M. arendsi Bocquentin-Villanueva 1984
  • †M. pattersoni Cidade et al. 2017
Synonyms

Family-level:

  • Nettosuchidae Langston 1965

Genus-level:

  • Caraindasuchus Gasparini 1985
  • Nettosuchus Langston 1965

Mourasuchus is an extinct genus of giant, aberrant caiman from the Miocene of South America. Its skull has been described as duck-like, being broad, flat, and very elongate, superficially resembling Stomatosuchus from the Late Cretaceous.[2][3]

  1. ^ Rio, Jonathan P.; Mannion, Philip D. (6 September 2021). "Phylogenetic analysis of a new morphological dataset elucidates the evolutionary history of Crocodylia and resolves the long-standing gharial problem". PeerJ. 9: e12094. doi:10.7717/peerj.12094. PMC 8428266. PMID 34567843.
  2. ^ Brochu, C. A. (1999). "Phylogenetics, Taxonomy, and Historical Biogeography of Alligatoroidea". Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir. 6: 9–100. doi:10.2307/3889340. JSTOR 3889340.
  3. ^ Villanueva, J. B.; Souza Filho, J. P. (1990). "O crocodiliano sul-americano Carandaisuchus como sinonímia de Mourasuchus (Nettosuchidae)". Revista Brasileira de Geociências. 20: 230–233. doi:10.25249/0375-7536.1990230233.