''Balanerodus'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

monospecific genus of alligatorid crocodylian. Fossils have been found from the Fitzcarrald Arch in the Peruvian Amazon and the

La Victoria Formation The Honda Group ( es, Grupo Honda, Tsh, Ngh) is a geological group of the Upper and Middle Magdalena Basins and the adjacent Central and Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The group, in older literature also defined as formation, is in its ...

of the

Honda Group is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a product ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

and date back to the Friasian and Laventan regional South American land mammal ages of the

Middle Miocene The Middle Miocene is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages: the Langhian and Serravallian stages. The Middle Miocene is preceded by the Early Miocene. The sub-epoch lasted from 15.97 ± 0.05 Ma to 11.608 ± 0.005 Ma (million y ...

.''Balanerodus''
at

Fossilworks Fossilworks is a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database The Paleobiology Database is an online resource for information on the distribution and classification of fossil animals ...

.org

Description

It was an atypical crocodilian with mysterious acorn-like teeth and co-existed with many other crocodilians, which were more diverse at the time period than they are today, including terrestrial predatory sebecid '' Langstonia'', the massive '' Purussaurus'', and flat headed duck-like '' Mourasuchus''. Its teeth and the diversity of crocodilians suggest it occupied a different niche than they did. Another animal with acorn-like teeth is the Vaquita. A 2015 study found teeth indistinguishable from those of ''Balanerodus'' among a set of ''Purussaurus'' teeth, suggesting that the two genera might be

synonymous A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

References

Alligatoridae Miocene crocodylomorphs Miocene reptiles of South America Friasian Colloncuran Laventan Neogene Colombia Fossils of Colombia Honda Group, Colombia Neogene Peru Fossils of Peru Fossil taxa described in 1965 Prehistoric pseudosuchian genera {{paleo-archosaur-stub