''Mesorhinosuchus'' ("middle nose crocodile") is an extinct

genus 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 n ...

basal Basal or basilar is a term meaning ''base'', ''bottom'', or ''minimum''. Science * Basal (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features associated with the base of an organism or structure * Basal (medicine), a minimal level that is nec ...

phytosaur Phytosaurs (Φυτόσαυροι in greek) are an extinct group of large, mostly semiaquatic Late Triassic archosauriform reptiles. Phytosaurs belong to the order Phytosauria. Phytosauria and Phytosauridae are often considered to be equivalent gr ...

possibly known from the

Early Triassic The Early Triassic is the first of three epochs of the Triassic Period of the geologic timescale. It spans the time between Ma and Ma (million years ago). Rocks from this epoch are collectively known as the Lower Triassic Series, which is a ...

(early

Olenekian In the geologic timescale, the Olenekian is an age in the Early Triassic epoch; in chronostratigraphy, it is a stage in the Lower Triassic series. It spans the time between Ma and Ma (million years ago). The Olenekian is sometimes divid ...

stage) of

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it the ...

, central-eastern

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. It was first named by

Otto Jaekel Otto Max Johannes Jaekel (21 February 1863 – 6 March 1929) was a German paleontologist and geologist. Biography Jaekel was born in Neusalz (Nowa Sól), Prussian Silesia, the son of a builder and the youngest of seven children. He studied at t ...

1910 Events January * January 13 – The first public radio broadcast takes place; live performances of the operas ''Cavalleria rusticana'' and ''Pagliacci'' are sent out over the airwaves, from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York Ci ...

and the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen( ...

is ''Mesorhinus fraasi''.Jaekel, O. (1910). Ueber einen neuen Belodonten aus dem Buntsandstein von Bernburg. ''Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin'', 5:197-229. The generic name ''Mesorhinus'' was preoccupied by '' Mesorhinus piramydatus'' Ameghino, 1885, a macraucheniid mammal, which is now considered to be a junior synonym of '' Oxyodontherium''. Thus, an alternative generic name, ''Mesorhinosuchus'', was proposed by

Oskar Kuhn Oskar Kuhn (7 March 1908, Munich – 1990) was a German palaeontologist. Life and career Kuhn was educated in Dinkelsbühl and Bamberg and then studied natural science, specialising in geology and paleontology, at the University of Munich, fr ...

1961 Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 ...

.Kuhn, O. (1961). Die Familien der rezenten und fossilen Amphibien und Reptilien. ''Verlaghus Meisenbach KG, Bamberg'', 1-79. The genus is occasionally misspelled as ''Mesorhinosaurus'', while Stocker and Butler (2013) recently misspelled its original generic name as '' Mesosuchus''. Jaekel (1910) described the

taxon In biology, a taxon ( back-formation from '' taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular n ...

on the basis of a single specimen he found in the collections of the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded i ...

, with a label that identified it as a

temnospondyl Temnospondyli (from Greek τέμνειν, ''temnein'' 'to cut' and σπόνδυλος, ''spondylos'' 'vertebra') is a diverse order of small to giant tetrapods—often considered primitive amphibians—that flourished worldwide during the Carb ...

from the Lower Buntsandstein (Early Triassic) of Saxony-Anhalt. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of seve ...

, unnumbered GZG partial

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, t ...

with the

anterior Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position prov ...

tip missing, was destroyed during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. According to Stocker and Butler (2013), based on the photograph in the original description, the holotype skull was undoubtedly phytosaurian, making it putatively stratigraphically lowest phytosaur known. Jaekel (1910) found a potential match of the sediment in which the skull was preserved to the Wipperbrücke, Parforcehaus locality, a horizon at the very base of the

Middle Buntsandstein The Buntsandstein (German for ''coloured'' or ''colourful sandstone'') or Bunter sandstone is a lithostratigraphic and allostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) in the subsurface of large parts of west and central Europe. The Buntsandst ...

near

Bernburg Bernburg (Saale) is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, capital of the Salzlandkreis district. The former residence of the Anhalt-Bernburg princes is known for its Renaissance castle. Geography The town centre is situated in the fertile Magdeburg ...

. This would make the specimen early

(Smithian) in age. However, because the holotype was destroyed with no surviving casts, and its provenance cannot be confirmed without new specimens, it have been largely ignored by recent authors, or assumed that its reported stratigraphic occurrence was incorrect.Hunt, A. P., and Lucas, S. G. (1991)
The ''Paleorhinus'' biochron and the correlation of the non-marine Upper Triassic of Pangaea
''Palaeontology'' 34(2):487-501. Various authors referred ''M. fraasi'' to as ''Paleorhinus fraasi'' or ''Parasuchus fraasi'', while a more recent review of the Phytosauria, by Stocker and Butler (2013), refrained from doing so, assigning it to Phytosauria ''Incertae sedis''.

References

Phytosaurs Prehistoric reptile genera Olenekian genera Early Triassic reptiles of Europe Triassic Germany Fossils of Germany Fossil taxa described in 1961 {{triassic-reptile-stub