A new crocodyliform from the Alcântara Formation (Cenomanian), Cajual Island, Brazil

Abstract

A new mesoeucrocodylian (Crocodyliformes) is described from the Laje do Coringa site, earliest Late Cretaceous (early Cenomanian) of the São Luís Basin, northeastern Brazil. Due to the likely hetorodonty indicated by distinct alveoli shapes, Coringasuchus anisodontis gen. et sp. nov. is tentatively referred to the Notosuchia and distinguished from other members of this clade by the presence of obliquely implanted teeth with the main axis directed anterolingually-toposterolabially and the presence of alveoli that are distinctively raised above the level of the dorsal margin of the dentary. The material further confirms the interpretation that the fossil concentration of the Laje do Coringa site is the result of multiple reworking events from previous deposits, but the degree of time-averaging was possibly higher than previously suspected.

A New Notosuchian from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil and the Phylogeny of Advanced Notosuchians

“…The age of this unit is regarded as early Cenomanian based on its vertebrate fossil content [76]. Therefore, the poorly known Coringasuchus anisodontis may represent the oldest advanced notosuchian known to date.…”

A new crocodylomorph specimen from the Araripe Basin (Crato Member, Santana Formation), northeastern Brazil

“…Several crocodylomorphs have been collected in Brazil, mainly from Cretaceous deposits, including notosuchians, baurusuchids, peirosaurids, and neosuchians (Price 1955(Price , 1959Buffetaut and Taquet 1977;Gasparini et al 1991;Bertini and Carvalho 1999;Carvalho and Bertini 1999;Carvalho et al 2004Carvalho et al , 2005Kellner et al 2009). Some dyrosaurid material in the form of a group of marine neosuchians has been recently found in the Early Paleocene strata of Pernambuco (Barbosa et al 2008).…”

Continental fossil vertebrates from the mid-Cretaceous (Albian–Cenomanian) Alcântara Formation, Brazil, and their relationship with contemporaneous faunas from North Africa

“…, Elias et al (2005), and Kellner et al (2009) suspected that at least some of these teeth might belong to Pholidosauridae, a Middle Jurassic to mid-Cretaceous neosuchian clade that is known from most continents and includes the gigantic, well-known genus Sarcosuchus (de Broin and Taquet, 1966;Buffetaut and Taquet, 1977;Sereno et al, 2001). Recently, Kellner et al (2009) described the new mesoeucrocodylian Coringasuchus anisodontis based on a dentary fragment from the Alcântara Formation of the Laje do Coringa locality on Cajual Island. These authors tentatively assigned Coringasuchus to Notosuchia, a morphologically diverse mesoeucrocodylian clade that is abundant and widespread in continental Cretaceous strata, mostly in the Gondwanan landmasses.…”

“…1), has improved dramatically over the past 30 years (e.g., Cunha and Ferreira, 1980;Carvalho and Campos, 1988;Carvalho, 1994Carvalho, , 1995Carvalho and Gonçalves, 1994;Medeiros and Schultz, 2001a, 2002, 2004Nobre and Carvalho, 2002;Carvalho et al, 2003;Castro et al, 2004Castro et al, , 2007Nobre, 2004;Medeiros, 2006;Elias et al, 2007a,b;Medeiros et al, 2007;Kellner et al, 2009). Vertebrate fossils from the Itapecuru Group include those of fishes, turtles, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, crocodyliforms, pterosaurs, and non-avian dinosaurs.…”

“…tiguidiensis; C, tooth plate of the dipnoan Ceratodus africanus; D, skull element Mawsonia; E, Lepidotes scale; F, Atlanticopristis tooth; G and H, incomplete caudal vertebrae of an indeterminate rebbachisaurid sauropod; I, Coringasuchus dentary; J, Pterosauria tooth; K, Spinosaurinae toofh; L, Carcharodontosauridae tooth; M, Maniraptora tooth. (A-C modified from Medeiros (2001), D and E modified fromMedeiros et al (2007), F modified fromPereira and Medeiros (2008), G and H modified fromMedeiros and Schultz (2004), I modified fromKellner et al (2009), J modified fromElias et al (2007a), K modified fromMedeiros (2006), L modified fromElias (2006), M modified fromElias et al (2007b). )…”