Metriorhynchoidea Temporal range: Middle Jurassic-Early Cretaceous, 173–135 Ma |
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Restoration of Teleidosaurus calvadosii | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Suborder: | †Thalattosuchia |
Superfamily: |
†Metriorhynchoidea Fitzinger, 1843 |
Subgroups | |
Metriorhynchoidea is an extinct superfamily of thalattosuchian crocodyliforms from the early Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous (Aalenian - Valanginian) of Europe, North America and South America. Metriorhynchids are fully aquatic crocodyliforms. Named by Fitzinger, in 1843, it contains the basal taxa like Teleidosaurus and Eoneustes and the family Metriorhynchidae. Two unnamed taxa are also known, from Oregon and Chile.
Metriorhynchoidea is a stem-based taxon defined in 2009 as the most inclusive clade consisting of Metriorhynchus geoffroyii, but not Teleosaurus cadomensis. The cladogram below follows the topology from a 2011 analysis by Andrea Cau and Federico Fanti. Note that the same topology was obtained in Mark T. Young and Marco Brandalise de Andrade, 2009 and Mark T. Young, Stephen L. Brusatte, Marcello Ruta and Marco Brandalise de Andrade, 2010.