Simosuchus clarki

Simosuchus is an extinct genus of notosuchian crocodyliforms from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar. It is named for its unusually short skull. Fully grown individuals were about 0.75 metres (2.5 ft) in length. The type species is Simosuchus clarki, found from the Maevarano Formation in Mahajanga Province, although one isolated multicuspid tooth of this genus was discovered in Kallamedu Formation of India.

Simosuchus clarki

D. Gordon E. Robertson · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
SimosuchusPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Simosuchus
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Mesoeucrocodylia

Time the record covers

At most 6.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 72.2 Mya and 66 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 20 of 20 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 20 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences67–66 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences72.7 Mya65.5 Mya

20 occurrences of Simosuchus clarki 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

20 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

Maevarano — 15.90°S, 46.58°EMaevarano — 15.98°S, 46.05°EMaevarano — 16.12°S, 45.74°E

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

Simosuchus clarki and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Simosuchus clarki and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

43 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 20 sites for Simosuchus clarki, 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

3 references

Each of the 20 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 content1

Picture of Simosuchus clarki

Credit
D. Gordon E. Robertson
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Simosuchus clarki 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 itSimosuchus through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Buckley et al. 2000