Kinyang

Kinyang is an extinct genus of osteolaemine crocodile from the Early to Middle Miocene of Kenya. Two species are currently known, K. mabokoensis from the Lake Victoria basin and K. tchernovi from the Lake Victoria and Lake Turkana basins. Kinyang had an exceptionally broad and robust skull, much wider than that of any living crocodile species. This might have allowed it to attack and kill prey its own size or even bigger. Kinyang is notably larger than its contemporary relative Brochuchus. While the precise reasons for the extinction of Kinyang are not known, it coincides with a larger faunal turnover that saw osteolaemines replaced by the still dominant crocodylines. One reason for this shift may have been the drying climate of Africa at the time, which caused rainforests to be replaced by more open environments and disrupted the nesting behavior of osteolaemines due to their dependence on foliage.

Kinyang

Armin Reindl · CC BY-SA 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
EuthecodontiniPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Crocodylia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Mesoeucrocodylia

Time the record covers

At most 6.7 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 20.45 Mya and 13.82 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 5 of 5 occurrencesMiocene21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20.9 Mya13.3 Mya

5 occurrences of Kinyang on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

3 formations

Maboko — 0.17°N, 34.62°ELokone — 2.55°N, 35.88°ELothidok — 3.22°N, 35.83°E

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The named rock units Kinyang has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Kinyang and its relatives

Miocene

Where Kinyang and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

49 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Kinyang, 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

1 reference

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. 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 Kinyang

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

No 3D scan of Kinyang 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 itEuthecodontini through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brochu et al. 2022