Musturzabalsuchus
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Musturzabalsuchus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Sauropsida |
| Superorder: | Pseudosuchia |
| Order: | Crocodylomorpha |
| Suborder: | Crocodyliformes |
| Infraorder: | Mesoeucrocodylia |
| Family: | Allodaposuchidae |
| Genus: |
Musturzabalsuchus Buscalioni et al., 1997 |
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Musturzabalsuchus is an extinct genus of crocodylian, and one of the oldest known members of the superfamily Alligatoroidea. The generic name means "Broadened rostrum crocodile", with "Musturzabal" meaning "broadened rostrum" in Basque and "suchus" meaning "crocodile" in Greek. The type and only species is M. buffetauti, named after the French paleoherpetologist Eric Buffetaut. The material first assigned to Musturzabalsuchus in 1997 has been found from the locality of Laño in Condado de Treviño, northern Spain. Although dating back to the Late Cretaceous, the exact age of the strata in which material of Musturzabalsuchus occurs in the locality is not known: it is either Late Campanian or very Early Maastrichtian. Despite the unusually high quantity of remains belonging to the genus (most other continental Late Cretaceous crocodilian genera from Europe are poorly represented), the only skeletal elements known from Musturzabalsuchus are the maxilla and mandible. Some fragments of these bones have been found from the locality of Armuña in the province of Segovia that were previously referred to an unnamed . Like the holotype and paratype material found from Laño, these fossils, known collectively as UPUAM-502, are Campano-Maastrichtian in age. Another specimen (MHNM 10834.0) from the Fuvelian Lignites of France has been referred to Musturzabalsuchus in 1999. However, the characteristics used to assign the material to better-known specimens of Musturzabalsuchus from Spain were questioned in a later study. Material from Musturzabalsuchus has been found more recently from Valencia, Spain, being slightly older in age than specimens from other localities, dating back to the Early or Middle Campanian.
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