Dongnanosuchus hsui

Dongnanosuchus is an extinct monotypic genus of orientalosuchin crocodilian known from the middle to late Eocene Youganwo Formation of China. Like other members of Orientalosuchina, Dongnanosuchus was a comparably small-bodied animal with a short, rounded snout that shares characteristics with both early alligatoroids and crocodylids, rendering the precise placement of the clade uncertain. It contains a single species, Dongnanosuchus hsui, which lived during the latter part of the Eocene in what is now the Maoming Basin of China, which at the time featured subtropical forests and a prominent lake that would be the foundation of the local oil shale. This environment was shared by the tomistomine Maomingosuchus and similar cohabitation between Maomingosuchus and orientalosuchins is known from similar sites across East Asia.

Dongnanosuchus hsui

Armin Reindl · CC BY 4.0 · 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
DongnanosuchusPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Crocodylia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Mesoeucrocodylia

Time the record covers

At most 11 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 48.07 Mya and 37.71 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Eocene — about 1 of 1 occurrenceEocene48–48 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences48–47 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences45–44 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences48.6 Mya37.2 Mya

1 occurrence of Dongnanosuchus hsui on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

1 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

1 formation

Youganwo — 21.70°N, 110.88°E

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

Dongnanosuchus hsui and its relatives

Eocene

Where Dongnanosuchus hsui and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

5 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Dongnanosuchus hsui, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Dongnanosuchus hsui

Credit
Armin Reindl
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Dongnanosuchus hsui was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itDongnanosuchus through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Shan et al. 2021