Sebecidae
Sebecidae | ||||||||||||
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Skull of Sebecus icaeorhinus |
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Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
Late Cretaceous to Miocene | ||||||||||||
Locations | ||||||||||||
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Systematics | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name | ||||||||||||
Sebecidae | ||||||||||||
Simpson , 1937 |
The Sebecidae (named after the Egyptian crocodile god Sebek ) are an extinct family within the crocodile-related Mesoeucrocodylia , whose fossils were found mainly in South America . There are also finds of uncertain affiliation from Europe, North Africa and Pakistan. Sebecids were relatively long-legged and probably lived largely on land. In South America there were no carnivorous higher mammals (placentalia) in their time , so that the ecological niche of carnivores was occupied exclusively by marsupials of the order Sparassodonta , terror birds (Phorusrhacidae) and probably the Sebecidae.
features
In contrast to other Mesoeucrocodylia they had a high, narrow snout , whose sides formed by the upper jaw (maxillary) were almost vertical. Their teeth were long, curved back, and ziphodont , i. that is, they were flattened on the sides and had sawn edges. They had four teeth on the intermaxillary bone (premaxillary) and ten to eleven on each maxillary. They had large gaps between their teeth. The fossil teeth were initially mistaken for those of theropods , carnivorous dinosaurs , so that the dinosaurs in South America were falsely believed to have survived beyond the Cretaceous-Paleogene border into the Paleogene . The intermaxillary bone is deeply structured by pits connected with canals. The skull suddenly widens in front of the eye sockets (orbits). The axial skeleton (spine and chest) is largely unknown.
The Sebecidae are combined by some scientists with the Baurusuchidae , another crocodile family with an elongated, laterally compressed skull, in a taxon Sebecosuchia (Colbert, 1946).
Genera
- Ilchunaia Rusconi , 1946
- Barinasuchus Paolillo & Linares , 2007
- Lorosuchus Pol & Powell , 2011
- Ayllusuchus Gasparini , 1984
- Bretesuchus Gasparini , Fernandez & Powell , 1993
- Langstonia Paolillo & Linares , 2007
- Sahitisuchus Kellner , Pinheiro & Campos , 2014
- Sebecus Simpson , 1937
- Zulmasuchus Paolillo & Linares , 2007
- Pehuenchesuchus Turner & Calvo , 2005 (may be outside the Sebecidae)
literature
- Michael J. Benton : Paleontology of the vertebrates. Translation of the 3rd English edition by Hans-Ulrich Pfretzschner. Pfeil, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-89937-072-0 .
- Robert L. Carroll : Paleontology and Evolution of the Vertebrates. Thieme, Stuttgart et al. 1993, ISBN 3-13774-401-6 .
- Eric Buffetaut : The evolution of the Crocodilians. In: Scientific American . Vol. 241, No. 4, 1979, pp. 124-132.
- Rodney Steel: The fossil crocodiles (= Die Neue Brehm Bücherei. Bd. 488, ISSN 0138-1423 ). A. Ziemsen Verlag, Wittenberg Lutherstadt 1975.
Web links
- Palæos Sebecosuchidae
- The Paleobiology Database Sebecidae