| Melanosuchus Temporal range: Late Miocene-Present, 11.6–0 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N | |
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Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Archosauromorpha |
| Clade: | Archosauriformes |
| Order: | Crocodilia |
| Family: | Alligatoridae |
| Subfamily: | Caimaninae |
| Clade: | Jacarea |
| Genus: | Melanosuchus Gray, 1862 |
| Species | |
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Melanosuchus is a genus of caiman. The genus is most commonly referred to as the "Black Caimans". The black caiman of South America is the sole extant (living) species, and is the largest living member of the subfamily Caimaninae, as well as the entire alligator family Alligatoridae.
Taxonomy
There are two known valid species of Melanosuchus, one extant and one extinct:
- Melanosuchus niger (Spix, 1825) – known as the Black caiman, native to the Amazon basin of South America
- †Melanosuchus latrubessei Souza-Filho et al, 2020 – discovered in the Solimões Formation of Brazil, dating from the Upper Miocene
Melanosuchus fisheri, named by Medina in 1976, from the Late Miocene Urumaco Formation of Venezuela is sometimes considered as a nomen dubium, and possibly synonymous with Melanosuchus niger.
Phylogeny
Melanosuchus is a member of the subfamily Caimaninae, which contains the two other extant genera Caiman and Paleosuchus, all of which are native to South and Central America. The below cladogram shows the relationships of all extant genera within Crocodilia (excluding separate extinct taxa), based on molecular phylogenetic studies.
| Crocodilia |
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References
- ^ Souza-Filho, J.P. (2020). "On a new Melanosuchus species (Alligatoroidea: Caimaninae) from Solimões Formation (Eocene-Pliocene), Northern Brazil, and evolution of Caimaninae" (PDF). Zootaxa. 4894 (4): 561–593. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4894.4.5. PMID 33311064. S2CID 229178080.
- Bona, Paula; Blanco, M. Victoria Fernandez; Schever, Torsten M.; Both, Christian (2017). "Shedding Light on the Taxonomic Diversity of the South American Miocene Caimans: The Status of Melanosuchus fisheri (Crocodylia, Alligatoroidea)" (PDF). Ameghiniana. 54 (6): 681–687. doi:10.5710/AMGH.08.06.2017.3103. S2CID 55376533.
- Christian Foth; María Victoria Fernandez Blanco; Paula Bona; Torsten M. Scheyer (2018). "Cranial shape variation in jacarean caimanines (Crocodylia, Alligatoroidea) and its implications in the taxonomic status of extinct species: The case of Melanosuchus fisheri" (PDF). Journal of Morphology. 279 (2): 259–273. doi:10.1002/jmor.20769. PMID 29139133. S2CID 31120204.
- 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.
- Hekkala, E.; Gatesy, J.; Narechania, A.; Meredith, R.; Russello, M.; Aardema, M. L.; Jensen, E.; Montanari, S.; Brochu, C.; Norell, M.; Amato, G. (2021-04-27). "Paleogenomics illuminates the evolutionary history of the extinct Holocene "horned" crocodile of Madagascar, Voay robustus". Communications Biology. 4 (1): 505. doi:10.1038/s42003-021-02017-0. ISSN 2399-3642. PMC 8079395. PMID 33907305.
- 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.
- Gatesy, J.; Amato, G. (2008). "The rapid accumulation of consistent molecular support for intergeneric crocodylian relationships". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 48 (3): 1232–1237. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2008.02.009. PMID 18372192.
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| Taxon identifiers | |
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| Melanosuchus | |