Sebecosuchia
| Sebecosuchia Temporal range: Late Cretaceous - Middle Miocene, 90–11 Ma |
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| Life restoration of Baurusuchus salgadoensis | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Node: | †Ziphosuchia |
| Branch: |
†Sebecosuchia Colbert, 1946 |
Sebecosuchia is an extinct group of mesoeucrocodylian crocodyliforms that includes the families Sebecidae and Baurusuchidae. The group first appeared in the Late Cretaceous with the baurusuchids and became extinct in the Miocene with the last sebecids. Fossils have been found primarily from South America but have also been found in Europe, North Africa, and Asia. Some recent studies have separated Baurusuchidae and Sebecidae, making Sebecosuchia polyphyletic, but others have retained it as a valid grouping.
Sebecosuchia was first constructed in 1946 by American paleontologist Edwin Colbert to include Sebecus and Baurusuchidae. Sebecus, which had been known from South America since 1937, was an unusual crocodyliform with a deep snout and teeth that were ziphodont, or serrated and laterally compressed. The family Baurusuchidae was named the year before and included the newly described Baurusuchus, which was also a South American deep-snouted form.
More recently, other crocodyliforms have been assigned to Sebecosuchia that cannot be placed into either family. These include the genera Eremosuchus, named in 1989, and Pehuenchesuchus, named in 2005. They are usually considered to be more basal sebecosuchians than the sebecids and baurusuchids.
Below is a cladogram showing the possible phylogenetic position of Sebecosuchia modified from Turner and Calvo (2005). In this cladogram, Sebecidae is a paraphyletic assemblage of basal sebecosuchians while Baurusuchidae is monophyletic and includes the more derived sebecosuchians.
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