Comahuesuchidae is a

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

notosuchia Notosuchia is a suborder of primarily Gondwanan mesoeucrocodylian crocodylomorphs that lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Some phylogenies recover Sebecosuchia as a clade within Notosuchia, others as a sister group (see below); if Sebecosu ...

crocodyliform Crocodyliformes is a clade of crurotarsan archosaurs, the group often traditionally referred to as "crocodilians". They are the first members of Crocodylomorpha to possess many of the features that define later relatives. They are the only pseudo ...

s. Constructed in 1991, it includes the

genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...

Comahuesuchus ''Comahuesuchus'' is an extinct genus of notosuchian crocodylomorphs from the Santonian Bajo de la Carpa Formation of Argentina. It was described by palaeontologist José Bonaparte in 1991. The type species is ''C. brachybuccalis''.

'' and ''

Anatosuchus ''Anatosuchus'' ("duck crocodile", the name from the Latin ''anas'' ("duck") and the Greek language, Greek ''souchos'' ("crocodile"), for the broad, duck-like snout) is an extinct genus of notosuchian Crocodylomorpha, crocodylomorph discovered in ...

''. Among the characteristics that are unique to this family is an external naris that is inset into the tip of the snout. There is also a

diastema A diastema (plural diastemata, from Greek διάστημα, space) is a space or gap between two teeth. Many species of mammals have diastemata as a normal feature, most commonly between the incisors and molars. More colloquially, the condition ...

, or gap between the teeth, at the tip of the upper and lower jaws. Both ''Anatosuchus'' and ''Comahuesuchus'' have

maxilla The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The t ...

ry tooth rows in the upper jaw that extend out and over the

dentary In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower tooth, teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movabl ...

tooth rows of the lower jaw. Several recent

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

analyses of notosuchians have placed ''Anatosuchus'' outside of Notosuchia altogether, and therefore outside Comahuesuchidae. If this is true, ''Comahuesuchus'' would be the only member of Comahuesuchidae.

References

Terrestrial crocodylomorphs Late Cretaceous crocodylomorphs Cretaceous first appearances Late Cretaceous extinctions Prehistoric reptile families {{paleo-archosaur-stub