Trematochampsidae 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 ...

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 ...

mesoeucrocodylia Mesoeucrocodylia is the clade that includes Eusuchia and crocodyliforms formerly placed in the paraphyletic group Mesosuchia. The group appeared during the Early Jurassic, and continues to the present day. Diagnosis It was long known that M ...

crocodylomorph Crocodylomorpha is a group of pseudosuchian archosaurs that includes the crocodilians and their extinct relatives. They were the only members of Pseudosuchia to survive the end-Triassic extinction. During Mesozoic and early Cenozoic times, cro ...

Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s are present from

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesArgentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

(in the case of ''

Caririsuchus ''Caririsuchus'' is an extinct genus of peirosaurid crocodylomorph. Fossils have been found from the Romualdo Formation of the Santana Group in the Araripe Basin in northeastern Brazil, dating back to the Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous Th ...

'', where some specimens have been found in the

Romualdo Member The Romualdo Formation is a geologic Konservat-Lagerstätte in northeastern Brazil's Araripe Basin where the states of Pernambuco, Piauí and Ceará come together. The geological formation, previously designated as the Romualdo Member of the Sa ...

of the Santana Formation). Possible trematochampsids have been found from

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, but classification past the family level is indeterminant. The trematochampsids first appeared during the

Barremian The Barremian is an age in the geologic timescale (or a chronostratigraphic stage) between 129.4 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago) and 121.4 ± 1.0 Ma). It is a subdivision of the Early Cretaceous Epoch (or Lower Cretaceous Series). It is preceded ...

stage of the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous ( geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphic name), is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 145 Ma to 100.5 Ma. Geology Pro ...

and became extinct during the late

Maastrichtian The Maastrichtian () is, in the ICS geologic timescale, the latest age (uppermost stage) of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series, the Cretaceous Period or System, and of the Mesozoic Era or Erathem. It spanned the interval from ...

stage of the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

Description

Trematochampsids are deep-snouted and have a ziphodont tooth structure. The dentition differs from most other crocodilians in that the teeth are recurved, serrated, and lateromedially compressed. This may be an adaptation to a terrestrial or at least semiterrestrial lifestyle as such teeth would be better suited for cutting and tearing into prey as opposed to capturing them and holding them underwater. Despite this, most trematochampsids are presumed to have been aquatic.

Taxonomy

There has been much controversy surrounding the family's

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree (also phylogeny or evolutionary tree Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA.) is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological spec ...

, and the group's

monophyly In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic grou ...

has been questioned. Relations between taxa within the family are also poorly understood. Many crocodylomorphs such as ''

Mahajangasuchus ''Mahajangasuchus'' is an extinct genus of crocodyliform which had blunt, conical teeth. The type species, ''M. insignis'', lived during the Late Cretaceous; its fossils have been found in the Maevarano Formation in northern Madagascar. It was a ...

'', ''

Bergisuchus ''Bergisuchus'' is an extinct genus of small sebecosuchian mesoeucrocodylian known primarily from the Eocene Messel Pit in Germany. Few fossils of ''Bergisuchus'' have been discovered, only a single incomplete snout, a few partial lower jaws an ...

'' and '' Iberosuchus'' had originally been assigned to Trematochapsidae but have since been assigned to the family Sebecidae or put into their own families.

Neogene The Neogene ( ), informally Upper Tertiary or Late Tertiary, is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period Mya. ...

sebecosuchians of Europe have been reclassified as trematochampsids but have recently been supported as true sebecosuchians as was originally proposed. ''

Itasuchus ''Itasuchus'' is an extinct genus of crocodylomorph from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil. Fossils of the type species ''I. jesuinoi'', first described in 1955 by Llewellyn Ivor Price, have been found from the Serra da Galga Formation (Maastricht ...

'' had originally been assigned to Trematochapsidae. The phylogenetic analysis of Carvalho ''et al.'' (2004) found a sister relations between ''

Malawisuchus ''Malawisuchus'' (meaning "Malawi crocodile") is an extinct genus of notosuchian mesoeucrocodylian from the Early Cretaceous Dinosaur Beds of Malawi. It was described in 1997 by Elizabeth Gomani as a member of the family Notosuchidae. The type ...

'' and ''Itasuchus''. They named this node family

Itasuchidae Itasuchidae is a Gondwanan family of mesoeucrocodylians that lived during the Cretaceous period. It was a clade of terrestrial crocodyliforms that evolved a rather dog-like form, and were terrestrial carnivores. Phylogeny The phylogenetic analys ...

, and found it to be a member of Peirosauroidea. However, their analysis didn't include any neosuchians or (other than ''Itasuchus'') trematochampsids. All more recent phylogenetic analyses found a close relations between Trematochapsidae and

Peirosauridae Peirosauridae is a Gondwanan family of mesoeucrocodylians that lived during the Cretaceous period. It was a clade of terrestrial crocodyliforms that evolved a rather dog-like form, and were terrestrial carnivores. It was phylogenetically defined ...

, and the two clades might be synonymous. Recent studies suggest that ''Itasuchus'' is a trematochampsid (and not closely related to the more derived notosuchian ''Malawisuchus''). In 2012, the new trematochampsid ''

Barreirosuchus ''Barreirosuchus'' is an extinct genus of trematochampsid notosuchian known from the Late Cretaceous of São Paulo State, southeastern Brazil. It contains a single species, ''Barreirosuchus franciscoi''. It is most closely resembles '' Caririsu ...

'' was described from the Bauru Basin as ''Itasuchus'' and it shares with it, and with '' Caririsuchus camposi'' from the Araripe Basin, several

synapomorphies In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to have ...

that are absent in other trematochampsids and peirosaurids. The cladistic analysis of '' Rukwasuchus'' found ''Trematochampsa'' a member of Peirosauridae. More recently, ''Trematochampsa taqueti'' was declared a ''nomen dubium'' by Meunier and Larsson (2018), who found that the materials assigned to it were from several different taxa. They also recommended that the taxon Trematochampsidae be abandoned.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5411813 Early Cretaceous crocodylomorphs Late Cretaceous crocodylomorphs Early Cretaceous first appearances Late Cretaceous extinctions Prehistoric reptile families