A new species of Caipirasuchus (Notosuchia, Sphagesauridae) from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil and the evolutionary history of Sphagesauria

• Autor(a) principal: Ruiz, Juan V. [UNESP]
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Bronzati, Mario, Ferreira, Gabriel S., Martins, Kawan C. [UNESP], Queiroz, Marcos V. [UNESP], Langer, Max C., Montefeltro, Felipe C. [UNESP]
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNESP
• DOI: 10.1080/14772019.2021.1888815
• Texto Completo: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2021.1888815; http://hdl.handle.net/11449/207687
• topic: Bauru Basin; Caipirasuchus; Notosuchia; Santo Anastácio Formation; Sphagesauridae

Sphagesauridae is a group of notosuchian crocodyliforms from the Late Cretaceous of South America characterized by highly specialized jaws and dentition. Here, we describe a new sphagesaurid from the Santo Anastácio Formation (Caiuá Group, Bauru Basin), south-east Brazil. The specimen is composed of a partial palate, neurocranium, mandible and fragmentary teeth. It represents a new species that can be assigned to Caipirasuchus due to the presence of a lateromedially narrow and anteroposteriorly long mandibular symphyseal region, apicobasal ridges on the posterior teeth, a diastema between D5 and D6, and a linear row of large neurovascular foramina on the lateral surface of the dentary. It differs from previously described Caipirasuchus species based on a ventrolaterally inclined surface of the dentaries posterior to the tooth row, a connection between the anteroventral margin of the external mandibular fenestra and the floor of the Meckelian canal, and the anterior process of the angular forming a ‘V’-shaped suture in its contact with the splenial. The results of a phylogenetic analysis of notosuchians recovered the so-called ‘advanced notosuchians’ in a clade, for which we propose a phylogenetic definition and erect the name Sphagesauria. We also recovered two more inclusive clades encompassing an array of Mesozoic notosuchians, here named Xenodontosuchia, which includes Sphagesauria + Baurusuchia, and Eunotosuchia, including Xenodontosuchia, Uruguaysuchidae and other Cretaceous forms. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:FD8D706F-9E01-4C09-BE4E-DC3BEDE151DC.