Baru darrowi
Baru, sometimes referred to as the cleaver-headed crocodile, is an extinct genus of Australian mekosuchine crocodilian. Its fossils have been found from various Late Oligocene and Miocene localities from across the Northern Territory and Queensland, indicating that Baru was a common genus during the late Paleogene and early Neogene. Three species are recognized, B. darrowi, B. iylwenpeny, and B. wickeni.

Armin Reindl · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- BaruPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Crocodylia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Mesoeucrocodylia
- Length
- 4.5 mWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 23.04 Mya to 15.98 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 27.3 Mya to 11.63 Mya.
4 occurrences of Baru darrowi on record, most of them in the Miocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
4 occurrencesThese are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
2 formations
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The named rock units Baru darrowi has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Baru darrowi and its relatives
MioceneWhere Baru darrowi and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
16 taxa- Birlimarr gaffneyi2 sites
- Australlus gagensis1 site
- Balbaroo nalima1 site
- Marlu syke1 site
- Maximucinus muirheadae1 site
- Meiolania brevicollis1 site
- Mekosuchinae1 site
- Mekosuchus sanderi1 site
- Mutpuracinus archibaldi1 site
- Nambaroo bullockensis1 site
- Obdurodon dicksoni1 site
- Quinkana timara1 site
- Rallidae1 site
- Trilophosuchus rackhami1 site
- Wabanbara ringtailensis1 site
- Warkalania carinaminor1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Baru darrowi, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- Baru darrowi gen. et sp. nov., a large, broad-snouted crocodyline (Eusuchia: Crocodylidae) from mid-Tertiary freshwater limestones in Northern Australia3
- The biochronology and palaeobiogeography of Baru (Crocodylia: Mekosuchinae) based on new specimens from the Northern Territory and Queensland, Australia1
Each of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Baru darrowi
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Armin Reindl
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Baru darrowi was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Baru”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itBaru through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Willis et al. 1990