Voay

Voay
Temporal range: Late Pleistocene, 0.1–0.01 Ma[1]
Divergence estimates suggest Oligocene origin
Skull, American Museum of Natural History
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Archosauromorpha
Clade: Archosauriformes
Order: Crocodilia
Family: Crocodylidae
Subfamily: Crocodylinae
Genus: Voay
Brochu, 2007
Type species
Voay robustus
(Grandidier & Vaillant, 1872)
Synonyms

Crocodylus robustus Grandidier & Vaillant, 1872

Voay is an extinct genus of crocodile from Madagascar that lived during the Late Pleistocene to Holocene, containing only one species, V. robustus. Numerous subfossils have been found, including complete skulls, noted for their distinctive pair of horns on the posterior, as well as vertebrae and osteoderms from such places as Ambolisatra and Antsirabe. The genus is thought to have become extinct relatively recently. It has been suggested to have disappeared in the extinction event that wiped out much of the endemic megafauna on Madagascar, such as the elephant bird and Malagasy hippo, following the arrival of humans to Madagascar around 2000 years ago.[2] Its name comes from the Malagasy word for crocodile.

  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. (2007). "Morphology, relationships, and biogeographical significance of an extinct horned crocodile (Crocodylia, Crocodylidae) from the Quaternary of Madagascar". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 150 (4): 835–863. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2007.00315.x.