Mesoeucrocodylia

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Mesoeucrocodylia
Fossil range: Early Jurassic - Recent
Simosuchus clarki was probably a herbivore
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Superorder: Crocodylomorpha
(unranked) Mesoeucrocodylia
Whetstone and Whybrow, 1983

Mesoeucrocodylia is the name of the clade that has replaced the paraphyletic group Mesosuchia.

It was long known that Mesosuchia was an evolutionary grade (Whetstone and Whybrow, 1983), a hypothesis confirmed by the phylogenetic analysis of Benton and Clark, 1988 which demonstrated that Eusuchia (which includes all living crocodilian species) was nested within Mesosuchia. As the authors did not accept paraphyletic groups, Mesoeucrocodylia was erected to replace Mesosuchia.

[edit] Clssification

[edit] Phylogeny

Cladogram after Larsson and Sues (2007)

Mesoeucrocodylia
  |--Thalattosuchia
  `--Metasuchia
      |--Notosuchia
      `--+--Sebecia
          `--Neosuchia
            |--+--Pholidosauridae
            |  `--Eutretauranosuchus
            |--Hylaeochampsa
            |--Mahajangasuchus
            `--Crocodylia (modern crocodilians)


[edit] References

  • Whetstone, K.N. & P.J. Whybrow. (1983). A “cursorial” crocodilian from the Triassic of Lesotho (Basutoland), southern Africa. Occasional Papers of the Museum of Natural History. The University of Kansas 106: 1–37
  • Larsson, H.C.E. & Sues, H.-D. (2007). Cranial osteology and phylogenetic relationships of Hamadasuchus rebouli (Crocodyliformes: Mesoeucrocodylia) from the Cretaceous of Morocco. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 149: 533-567
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