Miocene fossils from the southeastern Pacific shed light on the last radiation of marine crocodylians.

ABSTRACT: The evolution of crocodylians as sea dwellers remains obscure because living representatives are basically freshwater inhabitants and fossil evidence lacks crucial aspects about crocodylian occupation of marine ecosystems. New fossils from marine deposits of Peru reveal that crocodylians were habitual coastal residents of the southeastern Pacific (SEP) for approximately 14 million years within the Miocene (ca 19 to 5 Ma), an epoch including the highest global peak of marine crocodylian diversity. The assemblage of the SEP comprised two long and slender-snouted (longirostrine) taxa of the Gavialidae: the giant Piscogavialis and a new early diverging species, Sacacosuchus cordovai. Although living gavialids (Gavialis and Tomistoma) are freshwater forms, thi

SUBMITTER: Salas-Gismondi R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9091840 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature