Mekosuchus kalpokasi
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| Mekosuchus kalpokasi | ||||||||||||
| Mead , Steadman , Bedford , Bell & Spriggs , 2002 |
Mekosuchus kalpokasi is an extinct terrestrial dwarf crocodile from the subfamily of the Mekosuchinae . It wasendemicto Vanuatu . The art epithet honors Donald Kalpokas , the former Prime Minister of Vanuatu.
features
The holotype , discovered in 1999, consists of a fragment of the left upper jaw with toothless tooth sockets . Other material includes proximal fragments of the right tibia and the left fibula . The row of teeth of the upper jaw fragment is 88.7 mm long. The head of Mekosuchus kalpokasi was short and arched and not long and flattened, as is the case with most recent crocodile species.
Location
The bone material comes from the Arapus archaeological site on Efate in the Vanuatu Archipelago.
die out
After measuring with the C14 method , the age of the material is estimated to be between 1250 and 756 BC. (3200 to 2706 yBP ). The time of extinction falls in the early settlement of Vanuatu by the islanders of the Lapita culture . Presumably the animals were chased and eaten.
literature
- Jim I. Mead, David W. Steadman, Stuart H. Bedford, Christopher J. Bell, Matthew Spriggs: New extinct Mekosuchine crocodile from Vanuatu, South Pacific. In: Copeia. Vol. 2002, No. 3, 2002, ISSN 0045-8511 , pp. 632-641, doi : 10.1643 / 0045-8511 (2002) 002 [0632: NEMCFV] 2.0.CO; 2 .