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Leidyosuchus

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Genus of reptiles

Leidyosuchus
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous: Campanian, 77.9–72.1 Ma PreꞒ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Leidyosuchus canadensis skull
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Archosauromorpha
Clade: Archosauriformes
Order: Crocodilia
Superfamily: Alligatoroidea
Genus: Leidyosuchus
Lambe, 1907
Species
  • L. canadensis Lambe, 1907 (type)

Leidyosuchus (meaning "Leidy's crocodile") is an extinct genus of alligatoroid from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta. It was named in 1907 by Lawrence Lambe, and the type species is L. canadensis. It is known from a number of specimens from the middle Campanian age Dinosaur Park Formation. It was a medium-sized alligatoroid, with a maximum skull length greater than 40 centimeters (16 in).

Leidyosuchus canadensis skull dorsal view.
Leidyosuchus canadensis skull lateral view.

A number of species had been assigned to this genus over the years, including: L. acutidentatus (Sternberg, 1932), from the Paleocene of Saskatchewan; L. formidabilis (Erickson, 1976), from the Paleocene of North Dakota and Wyoming; L. gilmorei (Mook, 1942), from the Campanian of Alberta; L. multidentatus (Mook, 1930); L. riggsi (Schmidt, 1938); L. sternbergii (Gilmore, 1910), from the Maastrichtian (Late Cretaceous) of Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming; and L. wilsoni (Mook, 1959), from the Eocene of Wyoming. However, in 1997 Chris Brochu reevaluated the genus and reassigned most of the species, transferring L. acutidentatus, L. formidabilis, L. sternbergii, and L. wilsoni to the new genus Borealosuchus, and L. multidentatus to the new genus Listrognathosuchus, proposing L. gilmorei as a synonym of L. canadensis, and finding L. riggsi to be too fragmentary to be determinable.

Leidyosuchus is one of the basal-most members of the superfamily Alligatoroidea. Leidyosuchus's placement within Alligatoroidea can be shown in the cladogram below, based on a 2018 tip dating study by Lee & Yates that simultaneously used morphological, molecular (DNA sequencing), and stratigraphic (fossil age) data.

Crocodylia
Alligatoroidea

Leidyosuchus

Diplocynodontinae

Diplocynodon

Globidonta

Stangerochampsa

Brachychampsa

Navajosuchus

Alligatoridae
Caimaninae

Caiman

Melanosuchus

Paleosuchus

Alligatorinae

Alligator

extinct basal Crocodilians (including Mekosuchinae)

Longirostres
Crocodyloidea

extinct basal crocodiles

Crocodylidae

Crocodylus

Mecistops

Osteolaemus

Gavialoidea

extinct basal Gavialoids

Gavialidae

Gavialis

Tomistoma

References

  1. Rio, Jonathan P.; Mannion, Philip D. (6 September 2021). "Phylogenetic analysis of a new morphological dataset elucidates the evolutionary history of Crocodylia and resolves the long-standing gharial problem". PeerJ. 9: e12094. doi:10.7717/peerj.12094. PMC 8428266. PMID 34567843.
  2. Lambe, Lawrence M. (1907). "On a new crocodilian genus and species from the Judith River Formation of Alberta". Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada. Series 3. 1 (4): 219–235.
  3. ^ Wu, Xiao-Chun (2005). "Crocodylians". In Currie, Philip J.; Koppelhus, Eva (eds.). Dinosaur Provincial Park: A Spectacular Ancient Ecosystem Revealed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 277–291. ISBN 0-253-34595-2.
  4. Brochu, C.A. (1997). "A review of "Leidyosuchus" (Crocodyliformes, Eusuchia) from the Cretaceous through Eocene of North America". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 17 (4): 679–697. doi:10.1080/02724634.1997.10011017. JSTOR 4523857.
  5. Michael S. Y. Lee; Adam M. Yates (27 June 2018). "Tip-dating and homoplasy: reconciling the shallow molecular divergences of modern gharials with their long fossil". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 285 (1881). doi:10.1098/rspb.2018.1071. PMC 6030529. PMID 30051855.
Extinct crocodilians
Pseudosuchia
Neosuchia
Crocodilia
    • see below↓
Basal crocodilians
Mekosuchinae
Others
Alligatoroidea
Alligatoroidea
Globidonta
Orientalosuchina
Alligatoridae
Alligatorinae
Alligator
Caimaninae
Melanosuchus
Caiman
Deinosuchus riograndensis Purussaurus brasiliensis
Longirostres
Crocodyloidea
Crocodylidae
Osteolaeminae
Crocodylinae
Crocodylus
Gavialoidea
Gavialidae
Tomistominae
sensu stricto
Tomistoma
Gavialinae
sensu lato
Gavialis
Crocodylus anthropophagus Hanyusuchus sinensis
Taxon identifiers
Leidyosuchus
Leidyosuchus canadensis


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