Malawisuchus

Malawisuchus 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 species is M. mwakasyungutiensis, referring to Mwakasyunguti, the area of northern Malawi where it was found. It was classified as a member of the family Itasuchidae by Carvalho and colleagues in 2004.

No picture of Malawisuchus was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is. GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Malawisuchus, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CandidodontidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At most 8.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 121.4 Mya and 113.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 5 of 5 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous122–121 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences121–121 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences121–121 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences121–120 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences120–120 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences120–120 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences120–119 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences119–119 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences119–119 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences119–119 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences119–118 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences118–118 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences118–118 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences118–117 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences117–117 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences117–117 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences117–116 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences116–116 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences116–116 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences116–115 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences115–115 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences115–115 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences115–115 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences115–114 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences114–114 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences114–114 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences114–113 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences113–113 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences121.9 Mya112.7 Mya

5 occurrences of Malawisuchus on record, most of them in the Early 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

5 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

1 formation

Dinosaur Beds — 10.28°S, 34.03°E

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

Malawisuchus and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Malawisuchus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

9 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Malawisuchus, 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

1 reference

Each of the 5 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content0

No picture of Malawisuchus was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none.

Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Malawisuchus, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

No 3D scan of Malawisuchus 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

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 itCandidodontidae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gomani 1997