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Corallianassa — Maastricht formation: Thoracosaurus neocesariensis

#crocodile #europe #gharial #maastricht #paleontology #thenetherlands #maastrichtian #eusuchia #thoracosaurus #maastrichtformation #thoracosaurusneocesariensis
Published: 2017-11-27 13:38:53 +0000 UTC; Views: 4133; Favourites: 113; Downloads: 11
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Description The poll has spoken, and the crocodile has won.

Thoracosaurus was a genus of either gavialoid eusuchian crocodiles, or possibly just outside crocodylia, mostly known from the United States from the species Thoracosaurus neocesariensis. The size of this species is probably overestimated in many sources, due to the proportionally huge head, which leads to larger size estimates based on the skull than it would do otherwise.

Remains from the Maastricht formation have been tentatively referred to this crocodile, however, their incomplete and fragmentary nature makes a referral to Thoracosaurus neocesariensis uncertain. A jaw belonging to a second species of Thoracosaurus, Thoracosaurus macrorhynchus, has also been found in the Maastricht formation. However, it is uncertain if this jaw was truly found here, or somewhere else. Mislabeling fossils used to be more common back when it was found.

The postcranial remains from Maastricht indicate two individuals, one roughly 3 meters in length and the other exceeding 4 meters, based on modern false gharials. The latter of which I chose to depict in my drawing. Some remains from Hell Creek, North America, suggest that it might have grown to much larger sizes.

Thoracosaurus likely spent much time out at sea, and crossed large bodies of salt water regularly, as is indicated by it´s very wide geographic distribution. The slender jaws of this crocodile likely limited it to relatively small prey, and it likely focussed on fish like it´s modern relatives, Tomistoma gharials. However, even Tomistoma have been recorded killing rather large, terrestrial prey, so it may have hunted man-sized animals as well from time to time.

In the Maastricht seas, Thoracosaurus faced fierce competition from the larger, faster and more aquatically adept mosasaurids. Despite this, it thrived here and survived the K-Pg impact and kept existing for another few million years, unlike the mosasaurids.
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Comments: 28

trinityqueen [2020-02-18 12:06:22 +0000 UTC]

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Corallianassa In reply to trinityqueen [2020-02-18 15:59:14 +0000 UTC]

I haven't been able to find measurements to check the scaling that got 8 m size, but that size is indeed suggested by literature so it's probably fairly reliable.

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trinityqueen In reply to Corallianassa [2020-02-18 16:00:24 +0000 UTC]

What literature? Could you post a link?

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Rushkatansky In reply to trinityqueen [2021-11-30 12:52:19 +0000 UTC]

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Corallianassa In reply to trinityqueen [2020-02-18 17:07:34 +0000 UTC]

idk the source, it was mentioned in some abstract I have seen linked somewhere else but  I wouldn't be able to dig that up easily.

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trinityqueen In reply to Corallianassa [2020-02-18 17:25:00 +0000 UTC]

That’s a shame, I’ve been digging around for some information on it for a while as the saurian dev team has only ever replied with ‘it’s based on an 8 meter specimen, thanks anyways though.

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Megalotitan [2018-07-02 22:57:21 +0000 UTC]

there goes the crocodylian identification :^)

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Corallianassa In reply to Megalotitan [2018-07-03 05:19:50 +0000 UTC]

Hm I have not been keeping up lately.
what do you mean?

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Megalotitan In reply to Corallianassa [2018-07-03 06:38:07 +0000 UTC]

according to a new extrem phylogeni , thoracosaurs are outside of Crocodylia, making gharials a relatively recent radiation (a Saurian devlog also talked about it: sauriangame.squarespace.com/bl… )

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Corallianassa In reply to Megalotitan [2018-07-03 11:44:57 +0000 UTC]

Oh heck

thanks for the heads up

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Wyatt-Andrews-Art [2017-12-06 02:59:02 +0000 UTC]

Boy's got quite the temporal range

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Corallianassa In reply to Wyatt-Andrews-Art [2017-12-06 08:36:54 +0000 UTC]

Yep.

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Evodolka [2017-11-27 14:31:40 +0000 UTC]

vsnever heared of a Tomistoma but google says it's a fals gharial so i'll assume it means THAT
either way super cool

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Corallianassa In reply to Evodolka [2017-11-27 14:33:58 +0000 UTC]

Yep, Tomistoma schlegelii is the scientific name for the false gharial. It doesn´t Literally mean false gharial though.

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Evodolka In reply to Corallianassa [2017-11-27 14:45:40 +0000 UTC]

oh ok cool
so what does it mean then?

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Corallianassa In reply to Evodolka [2017-11-27 14:48:27 +0000 UTC]

It refers to the animal that we know as ´False gharial' in english, in the same way that ´crocodile´ refers to a certain animal. ´Crocodile´ doesn´t have any secondary meanings, and as far as I know neither does Tomistoma.

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Evodolka In reply to Corallianassa [2017-11-27 15:01:28 +0000 UTC]

oh ok then i thought it would be like how tyrannosaurus means tyrant izard

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Corallianassa In reply to Evodolka [2017-11-27 15:04:35 +0000 UTC]

My knowledge of Latin is limited, and my knowledge of Greek is none, so I´m not sure but I can´t see anything referring to ´false´ in it, nor can I see anything referring to ´gharial´ in it.
I do see ´stoma´ in it, which may refer to ´stomach´.

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Evodolka In reply to Corallianassa [2017-11-27 15:32:24 +0000 UTC]

i know a bit of latin tricks myself but i still have room to learn
same with greek, less so but till

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RaptorGorilla In reply to Evodolka [2017-11-29 11:09:33 +0000 UTC]

Tomistoma means "sharp mouth" or "pointed mouth" in Greek

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Evodolka In reply to RaptorGorilla [2017-11-29 13:06:52 +0000 UTC]

oh that is awesome, thanks

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RaptorGorilla In reply to Evodolka [2017-11-29 17:47:46 +0000 UTC]

In fact, "Sharp mouth" is more exact, because the Greek "tomos" connotes the idea of "cutting".
And "stoma" means "mouth", like in Stomatosuchus for instance.

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Evodolka In reply to RaptorGorilla [2017-11-29 17:51:50 +0000 UTC]

so "cutting mouth" fits most

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RaptorGorilla In reply to Evodolka [2017-11-29 17:56:47 +0000 UTC]

Yes I guess it works too. Anyway in my language a Tomistoma is a "bouche pointue"

I'm not sure if in English pointed necessarily means cutting.

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Evodolka In reply to RaptorGorilla [2017-11-29 18:08:18 +0000 UTC]

according to google translate "bouche pointue" means pointed mouth

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RaptorGorilla In reply to Evodolka [2017-11-29 18:31:49 +0000 UTC]

"Pointed mouth" is probably an acceptable translation for Tomistomia then.

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Evodolka In reply to RaptorGorilla [2017-11-29 19:23:40 +0000 UTC]

it fits too going off the gharial appearance

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Sajidnsari90 [2017-11-27 14:06:13 +0000 UTC]

holy  amazing   

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