| Ceratosuchus Temporal range: Late Paleocene
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|---|---|
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| Ceratosuchus burdoshi | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Archosauromorpha |
| Clade: | Archosauriformes |
| Order: | Crocodilia |
| Family: | Alligatoridae |
| Subfamily: | Alligatorinae |
| Genus: | †Ceratosuchus Schmidt, 1938 |
| Type species | |
| †Ceratosuchus burdoshi Schmidt, 1938
| |
Ceratosuchus ("horned crocodile") is an extinct genus of alligatorine crocodylian from latest Paleocene rocks of Colorado's Piceance Basin and earliest Eocene rocks of Wyoming's Bighorn Basin in North America, a slice of time known as the Clarkforkian North American Land Mammal Age. Like its modern relatives, Ceratosuchus was a swamp-dwelling predator. It is named for the pair of flattened, triangular bony plates that extend from the back of its head.
The type species is C. burdoshi, a name chosen by the Field Museum after Theodore Burdosh discovered a nearly complete skull on an expedition to Western Colorado in 1937.
"Fortunately, a knob of bone projecting from an otherwise undistinguished piece of rock had caught the eye of Mr. Burdosh, and the block had been broughtto the Museum. When the rock was chipped away, the insignificant external lump proved to belong to a fairly complete skull of a fossil crocodilian allied to the alligators; and on one posterior corner it bore a triangualr horn-like knob which proved to be identical with the mysterious separate fragments." [2]
- ^ 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.
- ^ Schmidt, Karl P. (1938-11-01). "The Horned Crocodile of Western Colorado". Field Museum News: 3.