Gnatusuchus
Sign in to saveGnatusuchus is an extinct genus of caiman represented by the type species Gnatusuchus pebasensis from the Middle Miocene Pebas Formation of Peru. Gnatusuchus lived about 13 million years ago (Ma) in a large wetland system called the Pebas mega-wetlands that covered over one million square kilometers of what is now the Amazon Basin (the modern basin had not yet developed at that time and instead of draining from west to east into the Atlantic Ocean, river systems drained northward through the wetlands and into the Caribbean Sea).
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Article
6 sectionsContents
- Discovery and naming
- Description
- Taxonomy
- Paleobiology
- Extinction
- References
Gnatusuchus is an extinct genus of caiman represented by the type species Gnatusuchus pebasensis from the Middle Miocene Pebas Formation of Peru. Gnatusuchus lived about 13 million years ago (Ma) in a large wetland system called the Pebas mega-wetlands that covered over one million square kilometers of what is now the Amazon Basin (the modern basin had not yet developed at that time and instead of draining from west to east into the Atlantic Ocean, river systems drained northward through the wetlands and into the Caribbean Sea).
==Discovery and naming== Fish and molluscs have long been known from the Pebas Formation, however starting in 2002 systematic surveys of the Peruvian Iquitos area have led to the discovery of many vertebrate remains including further fish remains, mammals, turtles and an abundance of crocodilians, with two contemporaneous lignitic bonebeds preserving a minimum of 7 coexisting taxa. Among the fossils recovered from the Iquitos localities is the holotype of Gnatusuchus, MUSM 990, a nearly complete skull, as well as 3 referred specimens consisting of a right and two partial left mandibles.