Paranasuchus
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| Paranasuchus Temporal range:
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| Genus: | Paranasuchus Bona et al., 2024
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| Type species | |
| Paranasuchus gasparinae Bona & Carabajal et al., 2013
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Paranasuchus is an extinct genus of large caiman from the Late Miocene Ituzaingó Formation of Argentina. The type species was originally described as a new species of Caiman, C. gasparinae, in 2013, but a study from 2024 concluded that it differed significantly enough to represent its own genus.
History and naming
The holotype of Paranasuchus consists of a partial snout (including a premaxilla, maxilla an other adjacent bones) as well as an associated skull table from Argentinas Ituzaingó Formation. Though the material had been considered to be referrable to the extant broad-snouted caiman in an unpublished doctoral thesis by Zulma Brandoni de Gasparini, a much later study from 2013 highlighted that this assumption was seemingly proposed without any actual justification or evidence. The study by Paula Bona & Ariana Paulina Carabajal instead proposed that the material represented a distinct species, which they dubbed Caiman gasparinae. In addition to the type material, they also assigned a fragment of a premaxilla to the species.[1] Nearly a decade later, Caiman gasparinae was once again reanalyzed and compared to extensive caiman material as well as other fossil crocodilians from the Ituzaingó Formation. This showed that it was not only distinct on a species level, but actually represented an entirely new genus, which was named Paranasuchus gasparinae.[2]
The name Paranasuchus translates to "Crocodile from Paraná", named so for the banks of the Paraná River where the fossils had been found. This parallels the name Paranacaiman, known from the same deposits and published in the same study.[2] The species name meanwhile honors paleontologist Zulma Brandoni de Gasparini, chosen as she spent much of her life studying extinct crocodyliforms.[1]
References
- ^ a b Bona, P.; Carabajal, A.P. (2013). "Caiman gasparinae sp. nov., a huge alligatorid (Caimaninae) from the late Miocene of Paraná, Argentina". Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology. doi:10.1080/03115518.2013.785335.
- ^ a b Bona, P.; Barrios, F.; Ezcurra, M.D.; Victoria, M.; Blanco, F.; Cidade, G.M. (2024). "New taxa of giant caimans from the southernmost hyperdiverse wetlands of the South American late Miocene". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 22 (1). doi:10.1080/14772019.2024.2375027.
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