Notosuchus
| Notosuchus | ||||||||||||
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Live reconstruction of Notosuchus |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Chalk | ||||||||||||
| approx. 86 to 83 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Notosuchus | ||||||||||||
| Woodward , 1896 | ||||||||||||
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Notosuchus ( Greek : "crocodile god of the south"; notos = "south"; suchus = " Sobek ") is an extinct genus of the Crocodylomorpha from the group of Notosuchia . Fossils were found in the Bajo de la Carpa Formation in Argentina and dated to the Upper Cretaceous about 86 to 83 million years ago. Notosuchus lived terrestrially, which means that it lived in the countryside. Arthur Smith Woodward described Notosuchus in 1896; he was the first known Notosuchia. The type species is Notosuchus terrestris . Another species, Notosuchus lepidus , was described by Saez in 1957.
features
In 2008 Fiorelli and Calvo described further remains of Notosuchus terrestris . They suspected that Notosuchus' snout resembled that of the pig . The forward-facing nostrils and the lack of a bony septum , which in Notosuchus probably consisted of cartilage , support this theory. Grooves on the surface of the nasal bones and lower jaw most likely served as an attachment point for nasolabial muscles and depressor muscles . In addition, Fiorelli and Calvo suspect that Notosuchus had soft muscular cheeks. The pig-like snout is said to have been used to search for food, similar to today's wild boars , while the cheeks served to ensure that the food in the mouth was not lost.
Systematics
Notosuchus is the eponymous genus of Notosuchia . These are a basic group of the Metasuchia , the group from which today's crocodiles developed. Within the Notosuchia, the systematic position of Notosuchus is very controversial. A study by Sereno et al. (2001) that Notosuchus is a derived Notosuchia, the sister taxon of which forms the African genus Malawisuchus . In 2009 Sereno and Larsson came to the conclusion that Notosuchus is a basal Notosuchia; the sister taxon still forms Malawi suchus . The following is a cladogram according to Sereno and Larrson (2009):
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Paleoecology
The Notosuchus fossils were found in the Bajo de la Carpa Formation . They are estimated to be around 86 to 83 million years old. The most common carnivores were probably other Notosuchia such as Comahuesuchus and Cynodontosuchus . Other Crocodylomorpha were the Sebecia Lomasuchus and Peirosaurus and the Protosuchia Neuquensuchus . There was also the very poorly preserved Noasauride Velocisaurus and the Alvarezsauride Alvarezsaurus . Primitive birds were New Quenornis , to which small nests and eggs are assigned, and Patagopteryx . Herbivores (herbivores) were only represented by Bonitasaura , a titanosaur .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Carlos A. Hugo, Héctor A. Leanza: General Roca Provincias de Río Negro y Neuquén (= Programa Nacional de Cartas Geológicas de la República Argentina, Hoja geológica. 3969-IV = Subsecretaria de Mineria de la Nacion - Servicio Geológico Minero Argentino - Instituto de Geologia y Recursos Minerales. Boletin. 308, ISSN 0328-2333 ). Secretaría de Energía y Minería et al., Buenos Aires 2001.
- ↑ Arthur Smith Woodward : On two Mesozoic Crocodilians Notosuchus (Genus Novum) and Cynodontosuchus (Genus Novum) from the Red Sandstone often the Territory of Neuquen (= Anales del Museo de La Plata. Paleontología argentina. Vol. 4, ZDB -ID 438149- x ). Talleres de publicaciones del Museo, La Plata 1896.
- ^ Matilde Dolgopol de Sáez: Crocodiloideos fosiles argentinos un nuevo crocodilo del Mesozoico Argentino. In: Ameghinana. Vol. 1, No. 1/2, 1957, ISSN 0002-7014 , pp. 48-50, online .
- ↑ a b Lucas Fiorelli, Jorge O. Calvo : New remains of Notosuchus terrestris Woodward, 1896 (Crocodyliformes: Mesoeucrocodylia) from Late Cretaceous of Neuquen, Patagonia, Argentina. In: Arquivos do Museu Nacional. Vol. 66, No. 1, 2008, ISSN 0365-4508 , pp. 83-124.
- ↑ Lucas E. Fiorelli: Nuevos restos de Notosuchus terrestris Woodward, 1896 (Crocodyliformes: Mesoeucrocodylia) del Cretácico Superior (Santoniano) de la Provincia de Neuquén, Patagonia, Argentina. Córdoba 2005 (Córdoba, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Tesis de Grado, 2005, unprinted).
- ^ Paul C. Sereno , Hans CE Larsson, Christian A. Sidor, Boubé Gado : The Giant Crocodyliform Sarcosuchus from the Cretaceous of Africa. In: Science . Vol. 294, No. 5546, 2001, pp. 1516-1519, doi : 10.1126 / science.1066521 , PMID 11679634 .
- ^ Paul C. Sereno, Hans CE Larsson: Cretaceous crocodyliforms from the Sahara (= ZooKeys. Vol. 28, Special Issue. ). Pensoft, Sofia 2009, ISBN 978-954-642-518-8 , doi : 10.3897 / zookeys.28.325 .
- ^ Héctor A. Leanza, Sebastián Apesteguía, Fernando E. Novas, Marcelo S. de la Fuente: Cretaceous terrestrial beds from the Neuquén Basin (Argentina) and their tetrapod assemblages. In: Cretaceous Research. Vol. 25, No. 1, 2004, ISSN 0195-6671 , pp. 61-87, doi : 10.1016 / j.cretres.2003.10.005 , and Maria Lidia Sánchez, Susana Heredia, Jorge O. Calvo: Paleoambientes sedimentarios del Cretácico Superior de la Formación Plottier (Grupo Neuquén), Departamento Confluencia, Neuquén. In: Revista de la Asociación Geológica Argentina. Vol. 61, No. 1, 2006, ISSN 0004-4822 , pp. 3-18, digitized version (PDF; 2.82 MB) ( memento of July 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ Lucas E. Fiorelli, Jorge O. Calvo: The first "protosuchian" (Archosauria: Crocodyliformes) from the Cretaceous (Santonian) of Gondwana. In: Arquivos do Museu Nacional. Vol. 65, No. 4, 2007, pp. 417–459, digitized version (PDF; 3.9 MB) ( memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ).
