Iberosuchus
Iberosuchus is a genus of extinct sebecosuchian mesoeucrocodylian found in Western Europe from the Eocene. Remains from Portugal was described in 1975 by Antunes as a sebecosuchian crocodilian. This genus has one species: I. macrodon. Iberosuchus was a carnivore. Unlike the crocodilians today, they were not aquatic but were instead terrestrial.

UNED Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia · 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
- SebecoideaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Pseudosuchia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Mesoeucrocodylia
Time the record covers
At least 10 million years on record.
The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 37.71 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 33.9 Mya.
24 occurrences of Iberosuchus 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
24 occurrences- Eocene100%
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
8 formations
- Corrales Formation3
- Cabrerizos Formation2
- Entrala Formation2
- Mazaterón Formation1
- Feligueira Grande Formation1
- Escanilla Formation1
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The named rock units Iberosuchus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Iberosuchus and its relatives
EoceneWhere Iberosuchus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
221 taxa- Diplocynodon9 sites
- Neochelys9 sites
- Asiatosuchus6 sites
- Allaeochelys5 sites
- Neochelys salmanticensis5 sites
- Hyrachyus4 sites
- Pachynolophus4 sites
- Plagiolophus4 sites
- Crocodylia3 sites
- Diplocynodon tormis3 sites
- Lophiobunodon minervoisensis3 sites
- Lophiodon3 sites
- Lophiodontidae3 sites
- Microparamys3 sites
- Palaeochiropteryx3 sites
- Saturninia3 sites
- Allaeochelys delheidi2 sites
- Amphiperatherium goethei2 sites
- Anchomomys2 sites
- Anguidae2 sites
- Cebochoerus2 sites
- Dichobune robertiana2 sites
- Eusuchia2 sites
- Leonhardtina meridianum2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Iberosuchus, 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
10 references- Crocodyliformes and Testudines from the Eocene of the Duero Basin (northwestern Spain): an update of their diversity and stratigraphic context10
- New material of the ziphodont mesoeucrocodylian Iberosuchus from the Eocene of Languedoc, southern France4
- Iberosuchus, crocodile Sebecosuchien nouveau, l’Eocène ibérique au nord de la Chaîne central, et l’origine du canyon de Nazare3
- Un nouveau gisement à vertébrés éocènes, Rouzilhac (MP 10-11), dans la série molassique d’Issel (Aude, France)1
- A sebecosuchian in a middle Eocene karst with comments on the dorsal shield in Crocodylomorpha1
- Le Lophiodon (Mammifère périssodactyle) du Lutétien d’Eygalayes (Drôme, France)1
- Primer espaldar en conexion anatomica de Allaeochelys casasecai. Cazurra: nuevo yacimiento del Eoceno de Zamora (Espana)1
- Diferencias anatómicas entre dos formas de Allaeochelys del Eoceno de Corrales (Zamora, España). Nueva especie de tortuga, Allaeochelys jimenezi nov. sp1
- Reinterpretation and new denomination of Atacisaurus crassiproratus (Middle Eocene; Issel, France) as cf. Iberosuchus (Crocodylomorpha, Metasuchia)1
- Primera nota sobre los vertebrados del Eoceno Superior de Matazarón y Deza (Soria)1
Each of the 24 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 Iberosuchus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- UNED Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Iberosuchus 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Iberosuchus”
- 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 itSebecoidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Antunes 1975