Crocodylus falconensis
| Crocodylus falconensis | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Pliocene | ||||||||||||
| 5.333 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Crocodylus falconensis | ||||||||||||
| Scheyer et al., 2013 | ||||||||||||
Crocodylus falconensis is a species of the real crocodiles (Crocodylidae), whose representativeslivedin South America in the early Pliocene (around 5,333 mya ). With a length of around 4 m and a live weight of around 300 kg, it was a medium-sized representative of the genus Crocodylus and lived on the lower reaches of the Amazon . It probably became extinct after the river changed course and the region became drier. Crocodylus falconensis is passed down from fossil skull bones and teeth that were found in the San Giorgo Formation of Venezuela. They were first described in 2013 by a group of authors around Torsten Scheyer , who referred them tothe genus Crocodylus on the basis of a phylogenetic analysis. The species is the most original representative of the New World Crocodylus species.
features
Crocodylus falconensis reached a head length of 42.5 cm. Its snout is distinguished from other Crocodylus species by its comparatively flat and wide shape. The back of the skull shows a central hump typical of New World Crocodylus species. The eye sockets are larger than the nostrils. The dimensions of the head suggest a total body length of around 4 m. The body weight is estimated at around 300 kg.
ecology
The find layer of the fossil remains of Crocodylus falconensis is formed by sediments that probably originate from the deposits on floodplains. There, the species is likely to have hunted large mammals and turtles in the water and on the shore area, similar to recent crocodylus species , among other things, the prey could have consisted of rodents the size of a capybara . In addition to C. falconensis , various species have been found that document a change from a warm, humid to a dry climate. At the transition from the Miocene to the Pliocene , the Amazon in northern South America fell dry and no longer drained into the Caribbean but into the southern Atlantic , causing many aquatic inhabitants to disappear from the region.
Fossil material, stratigraphy and dissemination
The fossil material of Crocodylus falconensis comes from a single individual and comprises a skull with a lower jaw and complete dentition ( inventory number AMU-CURS -300). It was found during excavations that took place in the Venezuelan town of Urumaco between 2007 and 2012 under the direction of Torsten Scheyer . The skull comes from the Vergel layer member of the local San Gregorio Formation , which dates from the early Pliocene and is dated to a little over 5 million years ago.
Systematics
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Systematic position of C. falconensis according to Scheyer et al. (2013).
The species is the most original representatives of the neotropical Crocodylus - clade |
The type Crocodylus falconensis was in 2013 by Torsten Scheyer , Orangel Aguilera , Massimo Delfino , Daniel Fortier , Alfredo Carlini , Rodolfo Sánchez , Jorge Carillo-Briceño , Luis Quiroz , Marcelo Sánchez-Vilagra erected . The specific epithet falconensis refers to the province of Falcón , where the holotype was found. A phylogenetic analysis of the new species and other crocodiles classified C. falconensis as the most basic representative of the New World Crocodylus species.
swell
literature
- Torsten M. Scheyer, Orangel A. Aguilera, Massimo Delfino, Daniel C. Fortier, Alfredo A. Carlini, Rodolfo Sánchez, Jorge D. Carrillo-Briceño, Luis Quiroz, Marcelo R. Sánchez-Villagra: Crocodylian diversity peak and extinction in the late Cenozoic of the northern Neotropics . In: Nature Communications . tape 4 , Article 1907, 2013, p. 1-9 , doi : 10.1038 / ncomms2940 .