Rhabdognathus

Rhabdognathus is an extinct genus of dyrosaurid crocodylomorph. It is known from rocks dating to the Paleocene epoch from western Africa, and specimens dating back to the Maastrichtian era were identified in 2008. It was named by Swinton in 1930 for a lower jaw fragment from Nigeria. The type species is Rhabdognathus rarus. Stéphane Jouve subsequently assessed R. rarus as indeterminate at the species level, but not at the genus level, and thus dubious. Two skulls which were assigned to the genus Rhabdognathus but which could not be shown to be identical to R. rarus were given new species: R. aslerensis and R. keiniensis, both from Mali. The genus formerly contained the species Rhabdognathus compressus, which was reassigned to Congosaurus compressus after analysis of the lower jaw of a specimen found that it was more similar to that of the species Congosaurus bequaerti. Rhabdognathus is believed to be the closest relative to the extinct Atlantosuchus.

Rhabdognathus

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikidata/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
HyposaurinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Pseudosuchia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Mesoeucrocodylia

Time the record covers

At most 17 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 72.2 Mya and 56 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 9 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 8 of 9 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 0 of 9 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences67–66 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences66–65 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences65–65 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences65–64 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences64–64 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences64–63 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences63–62 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences62–61 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences61–60 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences60–60 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences60–59 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences59–58 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences58–58 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences58–57 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences57–57 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences57–56 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences56–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72.7 Mya55.5 Mya

9 occurrences of Rhabdognathus on record, most of them in the Paleocene. 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

9 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

Umm Himar — 21.18°N, 41.50°EUmm Himar — 21.17°N, 41.42°EDange — 13.32°N, 5.40°E

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The named rock units Rhabdognathus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Rhabdognathus and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Rhabdognathus and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

17 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Rhabdognathus, 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

2 references

Each of the 9 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 Rhabdognathus

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

No 3D scan of Rhabdognathus 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 itHyposaurinae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Swinton 1930