Purussaurus

Purussaurus
Temporal range: Miocene (Friasian-Huayquerian), 16–5.3 Ma[1]
Skull restoration of P. brasiliensis
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Archosauromorpha
Clade: Archosauriformes
Order: Crocodilia
Family: Alligatoridae
Subfamily: Caimaninae
Clade: Jacarea
Genus: †Purussaurus
Rodrigues, 1892
Species
  • †P. brasiliensis (type species) Barbosa-Rodrigues, 1892
  • †P. neivensis Mook, 1941
  • †P. mirandai Aguilera et al., 2006
Synonyms

Purussaurus is an extinct genus of giant caiman that lived in South America during the Miocene epoch, from the Friasian to the Huayquerian in the SALMA classification. It is known from skull material found in the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon, Colombian Villavieja Formation, Panamanian Culebra Formation, Urumaco and Socorro Formations of northern Venezuela.

  1. ^ Rio, Jonathan P.; Mannion, Philip D. (September 6, 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.