Dakotasuchus

Dakotasuchus is a genus of goniopholidid mesoeucrocodylian. Its fossils have been recovered from the Cenomanian-age Upper Cretaceous Dakota Sandstone of Kansas. The type specimen was found in an iron-cemented sandstone concretion near Salina. This concretion was broken into two large pieces; more of the specimen was probably present originally, but by the time it was found only the torso and short portions of the neck and tail remained. Twenty pairs of bony scutes ran down the midline of the back. The vertebrae lacked the procoelous articulation of more derived crocodyliforms. Dakotasuchus had short broad shoulder blades, suggesting it had stout powerful forelimbs and perhaps terrestrial habits. M. G. Mehl, who described the genus, estimated the length of the type individual when complete to have been 3–4 metres (9.8–13.1 ft). The type species is D. kingi, named for Professor King, a former dean of Kansas Wesleyan University. Mehl did not classify his new genus to a more inclusive group than Mesosuchia. Robert Carroll assigned Dakotasuchus to Goniopholididae in 1988. In 2017, fossils of Dakotasuchus kingi which consisted of a coracoid, scutes, a dorsal vertebrate and postcranial bones were found in Utah, specifically in the Cedar Mountain Formation's Mussentuchit Member.

Dakotasuchus

Joseph A. Frederickson, Joshua E. Cohen, Tyler C. Hunt, and Richard L. Cifelli · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
PholidosauridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Pseudosuchia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Mesoeucrocodylia

Time the record covers

At most 13 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 106.3 Mya and 93.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 5 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 4 of 5 occurrencesLate Cretaceous106–106 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences106–105 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences105–105 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences105–105 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences105–104 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences104–104 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences104–103 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences103–103 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences103–102 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences102–102 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences102–101 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences101–101 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences101–101 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences101–100 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences100–100 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences100–99 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences99–99 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences99–98 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences98–98 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences98–97 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences97–96 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences96–96 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences96–95 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences95–95 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences95–94 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences94–94 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences106.8 Mya93.4 Mya

5 occurrences of Dakotasuchus on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

5 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

Dakota — 38.00°N, 98.00°WDakota — 38.84°N, 97.65°WDakota — 38.92°N, 98.50°WCedar Mountain — 38.88°N, 111.27°WCedar Mountain — 38.64°N, 111.37°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Dakotasuchus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Dakotasuchus and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Dakotasuchus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

43 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Dakotasuchus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

5 references

Each of the 5 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Dakotasuchus

Credit
Joseph A. Frederickson, Joshua E. Cohen, Tyler C. Hunt, and Richard L. Cifelli
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Dakotasuchus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPholidosauridae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Mehl 1941