Bergisuchus

Bergisuchus
Temporal range: Eocene
Bergisuchus dietrichbergi mandible
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Superorder: Crocodylomorpha
Branch: †Sebecosuchia
Clade: †Sebecia
Family: †Bergisuchidae
Rossmann et al., 2000
Genus: †Bergisuchus
Berg, 1966
Species
  • †B. dietrichbergi Kuhn, 1968

Bergisuchus is an extinct genus of sebecosuchian mesoeucrocodylian. Fossils have been found from the Eocene Messel Pit in Germany. Bergisuchus was originally classified as a sebecosuchian, supposedly the first to be found outside South America, and later assigned to Trematochampsidae in 1988.[1] Later that year it was reclassified as a basal baurusuchid.[2] In 2000, the genus was given its own family, Bergisuchidae.[3]

Bergisuchus is known from a holotype rostrum from the Messel Pit, first described in 1966, and a mandible from an open-pit coal mine near Halle in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.[3] The Messel Pit is famous for its well-preserved fossils, which include semiaquatic crocodyliforms such as Asiatosuchus and Diplocynodon. Unlike other crocodyliforms present in the Messel Pit, Bergisuchus was a small terrestrial hypercarnivore.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Turner, A. H.; Calvo, J. O. (2005). "A new sebecosuchian crocodyliform from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 25 (1): 87–98. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2005)025[0087:ANSCFT]2.0.CO;2.
  2. ↑ Carroll, R.L. (1988) Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. WH Freeman and Company, New York ISBN 0-7167-1822-7
  3. 1 2 Rossmann, T.; Rauhe, M.; Ortega, F. (2000). "Studies on Cenozoic crocodiles: 8. Bergisuchus dietrichbergi Kuhn (Sebecosuchia: Bergisuchidae n. fam.) from the Middle Eocene of Germany, some new systematic and biological conclusions". Paläontologische Zeitschrift. 74 (3): 379–392. doi:10.1007/BF02988108.
  4. ↑ Jordi Agusti and Mauricio Anton (2002) Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids: 65 Million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe. Columbia University Press.
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