Uruguaysuchidae

Uruguaysuchidae is a family of notosuchian crocodyliforms that lived in South America and Africa during the Cretaceous period. It was formally defined under the PhyloCode in 2024 as "the most inclusive clade containing Uruguaysuchus aznarezi but not Baurusuchus pachecoi, Peirosaurus torminni, Mahajangasuchus insignis, Notosuchus terrestris, and Crocodylus niloticus." Below is a modified cladogram that depicts the preferred reference phylogeny, chosen from Fernández Dumont et al. (2020):

Uruguaysuchidae

Sereno PC, Larsson HCE · CC BY 3.0 · 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
EunotosuchiaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Pseudosuchia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Mesoeucrocodylia

Time the record covers

At least 41 million years on record.

The record covers at least 113.2 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 121.4 Mya to 66 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 19 of 25 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 6 of 25 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 25 occurrences123–121 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences121–119 Mya — about 1 occurrence119–117 Mya — about 2 occurrences117–115 Mya — about 2 occurrences115–113 Mya — about 2 occurrences113–111 Mya — about 4 occurrences111–109 Mya — about 3 occurrences109–107 Mya — about 1 occurrence107–105 Mya — about 1 occurrence105–103 Mya — about 1 occurrence103–101 Mya — about 1 occurrence101–99 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences99–98 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences98–96 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences96–94 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences94–92 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences92–90 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences90–88 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences88–86 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences86–84 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences84–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences73–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences71–69 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences69–67 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences67–65 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences113.2 Mya72.2 Mya123 Mya65 Mya

25 occurrences of Uruguaysuchidae on record, most of them in the Early 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

25 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

11 formations

Elrhaz — 16.43°N, 9.12°EElrhaz — 16.77°N, 9.38°EElrhaz — 16.70°N, 9.33°ECandeleros — 39.63°S, 68.70°WCandeleros — 39.10°S, 68.62°WKoum — 8.35°N, 14.79°EGuichón — 32.35°S, 57.20°WAïn el Guettar — 32.68°N, 10.17°ERomualdo — 7.09°S, 40.62°WRomualdo — 7.22°S, 39.27°WDinosaur Beds — 10.28°S, 34.03°EMaevarano — 15.91°S, 46.58°EInbeceten — 15.05°N, 6.03°EDouira — 31.43°N, 4.23°WCrato — 7.00°S, 39.00°W

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The named rock units Uruguaysuchidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Uruguaysuchidae and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Uruguaysuchidae and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

165 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 22 sites for Uruguaysuchidae, 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

15 references

Each of the 25 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. 3 further references are not listed. 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 Uruguaysuchidae

Credit
Sereno PC, Larsson HCE
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Uruguaysuchidae 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 itEunotosuchia through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gasparini 1971