Deinosuchus

Deinosuchus is an extinct genus of eusuchian, either an alligatoroid crocodilian or a stem-group crocodilian, which lived during the Late Cretaceous around 82 to 73 million years ago. The first remains were discovered in North Carolina in the 1850s, and the genus was first described in 1909. Additional fragments were discovered in the 1940s and were later incorporated into an influential, though inaccurate, skull reconstruction at the American Museum of Natural History. Knowledge of Deinosuchus remains incomplete, but better cranial and postcranial material found in recent years has expanded scientific understanding of this massive predator.

Deinosuchus

Source: Jonathan Cutrer Derivative: User:MathKnight · CC BY 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
AlligatoroideaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Crocodylia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Mesoeucrocodylia

Time the record covers

At most 12 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 83.6 Mya and 72.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 19 of 19 occurrencesLate Cretaceous84–83 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences83–83 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences81–81 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences80–80 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences80–80 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences79–79 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences78–78 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences77–77 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences77–77 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences76–76 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences74–74 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences73–73 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences73–73 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences84.1 Mya71.7 Mya

19 occurrences of Deinosuchus on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

19 occurrences

These 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

9 formations

Aguja — 29.32°N, 103.52°WAguja — 29.10°N, 103.17°WAguja — 29.29°N, 103.55°WJudith River — 47.40°N, 109.65°WJudith River — 46.76°N, 108.00°WAguja — 28.92°N, 103.34°WAguja — 28.83°N, 103.30°WMooreville — 32.15°N, 86.65°WMooreville — 32.92°N, 88.08°WKaiparowits — 37.45°N, 111.53°WFruitland — 36.27°N, 108.20°WCoffee Sand — 34.26°N, 88.69°WMenefee — 36.09°N, 108.16°WBlufftown — 32.26°N, 85.27°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Deinosuchus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Deinosuchus and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Deinosuchus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

131 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Deinosuchus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

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

15 references

Each of the 19 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. 3 further references are not listed. 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 content3

Picture of Deinosuchus

Credit
Source: Jonathan Cutrer Derivative: User:MathKnight
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Deinosuchus riograndensis · TxVP:43632-1

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

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 itAlligatoroidea through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Holland 1909