''Bergisuchus'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of small

sebecosuchia Sebecosuchia (meaning "Sobek crocodiles") is an extinct group of mesoeucrocodylian crocodyliforms that includes the families Sebecidae and Baurusuchidae. The group was long thought to have first appeared in the Late Cretaceous with the baurusu ...

mesoeucrocodylia Mesoeucrocodylia is the clade that includes Eusuchia and crocodyliforms formerly placed in the paraphyletic group Mesosuchia. The group appeared during the Early Jurassic, and continues to the present day. Diagnosis It was long known that Me ...

n known primarily from the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

Messel Pit The Messel Formation is a Formation (geology), geologic formation in Hesse, central Germany, dating back to the Eocene Epoch (geology), epoch (about 47 Ma). Its geographic range is restricted to the Messel pit. There it unconformably overlie ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Few fossils of ''Bergisuchus'' have been discovered, only a single incomplete snout, a few partial lower jaws and some teeth. Despite being fragmentary, the jaw bones are enough to indicate that ''Bergisuchus'' had a short, deep, narrow snout and serrated teeth, quite unlike the broad flat snouts of modern crocodylians. As with other sebecosuchians, it is likely that ''Bergisuchus'' was a fast,

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth, as opposed to extraterrestrial. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on o ...

predator and not an

aquatic Aquatic means relating to water; living in or near water or taking place in water; does not include groundwater, as "aquatic" implies an environment where plants and animals live. Aquatic(s) may also refer to: * Aquatic animal, either vertebrate ...

ambush hunter like modern crocodylians. Its presence in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

is also unusual, as later sebecosuchians were restricted entirely to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, and so ''Bergisuchus'' indicates the group was once much more widespread in the early

Cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

History of Discovery

''Bergisuchus'' was first discovered by Dr. Dietrich Berg from the German Messel Pit in 1966, who originally classified it as an unnamed new species of sebecosuchian with close affinities to ''

Sebecus ''Sebecus'' (meaning "Sobek" in Latin) is an extinct genus of Sebecidae, sebecid crocodylomorph from Paleogene period of South America. Like other sebecosuchians, it was entirely terrestrial and carnivorous. The genus is currently represented by ...

'', notable for being the first sebecosuchian remains to be recognised outside

. It was named and described two years later in 1968 by German

palaeontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

Oskar Kuhn Oskar Kuhn (7 March 1908, Munich – 1 May 1990) was a German palaeontologist. Life and career Kuhn was educated in Dinkelsbühl and Bamberg and then studied natural science, specialising in geology and paleontology, at the University of Mun ...

, who named the

binomial Binomial may refer to: In mathematics *Binomial (polynomial), a polynomial with two terms *Binomial coefficient, numbers appearing in the expansions of powers of binomials *Binomial QMF, a perfect-reconstruction orthogonal wavelet decomposition * ...

''Bergisuchus dietrichbergi'' in honour of Dr. Berg and combined it with the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

suffix ''suchos'' for "crocodile". ''Bergisuchus'' is known from the

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

snout A snout is the protruding portion of an animal's face, consisting of its nose, mouth, and jaw. In many animals, the structure is called a muzzle, Rostrum (anatomy), rostrum, beak or proboscis. The wet furless surface around the nostrils of the n ...

and

lower jaw In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla). The jawbone i ...

(HLMD-Me 7003) from the Messel Pit near

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

first reported in 1966, dated to the

Mammal Paleogene zone The Mammal Paleogene zones or MP zones are a system of biostratigraphic zones in the stratigraphic record used to correlate mammal-bearing fossil localities of the Paleogene period of Europe. It consists of thirty consecutive zones (numbered MP 1 ...

(MP) 11, and an additional incomplete pair of mandibles (GM XVIII-49) from the

Geiseltal The Geisel valley () is a valley in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, situated west of Merseburg, Saalekreis district. It is named after the River Geisel which rises in Mücheln and is a tributary of the Saale, just under long. Its main settlements are ...

open-pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock (geology), rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially ...

coal mine Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

near Halle in the state of

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a States of Germany, state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the List of German states ...

from the slightly younger MP 12. The holotype is stored in the

Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt (HLMD) is a large multidisciplinary museum in Darmstadt, Germany. The museum exhibits Rembrandt, Beuys, a primeval horse and a mastodon under the slogan "The whole world under one roof". As one of the oldest publ ...

, while the paratype is housed in the Geiseltal Collection of the Center for Natural Science Collections at the

Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (), also referred to as MLU, is a public university, public research university in the cities of Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Halle and Wittenberg. It is the largest and oldest university in the German State o ...

, in Germany. In 2015, osteoderms from karst deposits dated to the Middle Eocene in

Lissieu Lissieu () is a commune in the Metropolis of Lyon in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in eastern France. Population See also *Communes of the Metropolis of Lyon The following is a list of the 58 communes of the Lyon Metropolis, France F ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, were tentatively suggested to belong to ''Bergisuchus'' sp., or alternatively to ''

Iberosuchus ''Iberosuchus'' (meaning "Iberian crocodile") is a genus of extinct sebecosuchian mesoeucrocodylian found in Western Europe from the Eocene. Remains from Portugal was described in 1975 by Antunes as a sebecosuchian crocodilian. This genus has on ...

'' sp. (another European sebecosuchian). This referral was based on the similarity between the osteoderms and those of ''

Baurusuchus ''Baurusuchus'' is an extinct genus of baurusuchid mesoeucrocodylian, which lived in Brazil from 90 to 83.5 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous period. It was a terrestrial predator, estimated to reach up to in weight. ''Baurusuchus' ...

'' and other sebecosuchians, as the two genera are the only known European sebecosuchians.

Description

''Bergisuchus'' is only represented by the holotype snout and lower jaw (HLMD-Me 7003) and the referred pair of lower jaws (GM XVIII-49), so much of its anatomy is unknown. The snout is tall and laterally compressed, unlike the broad flat snouts of modern crocodylians, with tall

nasals In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...

that form a raised, sharp midline along the length of the snout. Rossmann and colleagues reconstructed the incomplete

premaxilla The premaxilla (or praemaxilla) is one of a pair of small cranial bones at the very tip of the upper jaw of many animals, usually, but not always, bearing teeth. In humans, they are fused with the maxilla. The "premaxilla" of therian mammals h ...

e as tall and steep based on the dimensions of the

maxilla In vertebrates, the maxilla (: maxillae ) is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The two maxil ...

, more similar in shape to those of ''Baurusuchus'', ''

Barinasuchus ''Barinasuchus'' (meaning " Barinas crocodile", in reference to where the type material was found) is an extinct genus of sebecid mesoeucrocodylian. The first specimen of ''Barinasuchus'' was recovered from the Miocene Ipururo Formation of Per ...

'' and ''

Bretesuchus ''Bretesuchus'' is an extinct genus of sebecosuchian mesoeucrocodylian within the family Sebecidae known from northwestern Argentina.nostril openings that faced laterally on the surface, as well as laterally facing eyes, unlike modern crocodylians. Also, it shares with ''Iberosuchus'' the unusual presence of a small

antorbital fenestra An antorbital fenestra (plural: fenestrae) is an opening in the skull that is in front of the eye sockets. This skull character is largely associated with Archosauriformes, archosauriforms, first appearing during the Triassic Period. Among Extant ...

, a feature that's invariably absent in both

baurusuchids Baurusuchidae is a Gondwanan Family (biology), family of mesoeucrocodylians that lived during the Late Cretaceous. It is a group of terrestrial hypercarnivorous crocodilians from South America (Argentina and Brazil) and possibly Pakistan. Baurusu ...

and

sebecids Sebecidae is an extinct family of prehistoric terrestrial sebecosuchian crocodylomorphs, known from the Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic of Europe and South America. They were the latest surviving group of non-crocodilian crocodylomorphs. The oldest ...

. The surface of the maxilla is profusely sculpted with ridges and grooves, a feature that clearly distinguishes it from ''Iberosuchus''. The lower jaws are mostly only known from incomplete

dentaries In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla). The jawbone i ...

(as well as part of the

splenial The splenial is a small bone in the lower jaw of reptile Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology ...

), and their surfaces are as similarly strongly sculpted as the upper jaws. The teeth are relatively narrow and serrated (ziphodont), similar to those of predatory

theropod Theropoda (; from ancient Greek , (''therion'') "wild beast"; , (''pous, podos'') "foot"">wiktionary:ποδός"> (''pous, podos'') "foot" is one of the three major groups (clades) of dinosaurs, alongside Ornithischia and Sauropodom ...

dinosaurs Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

and unlike the conical teeth of modern crocodylians. Few teeth themselves are preserved, but they include a very large and prominent serrated 'pseudocanine' that fits into the notch of the upper jaw. This canine is approximately 2 cm tall, and sits on a prominently raised portion of the jaw bone, which arches down in front and behind it and so the rest of the jaw is quite shallow. The rest of the teeth are mostly missing, but the size and shape of the remaining

alveoli Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology * Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs ** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte ** Alveolar duct ** Alveolar macrophage * M ...

indicate the size and position of the other teeth in the jaws. The other teeth are around 3 times smaller in diameter than the canines, a unique characteristic of this genus, and are closely packed behind the canine in the lower jaw. Three small teeth are present in front of the canine, the first of which is larger and procumbent, facing up and forwards at the front of the jaw. The maxillary teeth are similarly small, the largest being the third tooth, and the rest of which getting progressively smaller behind it. Premaxillary teeth are unknown, but it possibly had another pair of larger 'pseudocanines' in the upper jaw. It is estimated that there were only 13 teeth in each lower jaw, and at least 13—14 in the upper jaw, a relatively small number compared to other sebecosuchians like ''Iberosuchus''. The teeth are not as strongly compressed as other ziphodont crocodilians, and so may have been stronger and more resistant to stress. Rossmann and colleagues estimated the total body length of ''Bergisuchus'' to be around based on other short-snouted, partially terrestrial crocodylians including ''

Allognathosuchus ''Allognathosuchus'' (meaning "other jaw crocodile") is an extinct genus of alligatorine crocodylian with a complicated taxonomic history. It was named in 1921. Description ''Allognathosuchus'' was a medium-sized predator up to 1.5 m in length. ...

'' and the

extant Extant or Least-concern species, least concern is the opposite of the word extinct. It may refer to: * Extant hereditary titles * Extant literature, surviving literature, such as ''Beowulf'', the oldest extant manuscript written in English * Exta ...

dwarf caimans ''

Paleosuchus ''Paleosuchus'' is a South American genus of reptiles in the subfamily Caimaninae of the family Alligatoridae. They are the smallest members of the order Crocodilia in the Americas. Classification The genus name ''Paleosuchus'' is derived from t ...

''. Despite its small size, they believed both specimens to represent mature adults, based on both the degree of fusion between the sutures in the skull and the extent of the dermal sculpting on the surface of the bones. As a sebecosuchian, ''Bergisuchus'' likely had long limbs that were positioned directly under its body and moved with a parasagittal gait, unlike the sprawling limbs of modern crocodylians. It is unknown if it had a reduced covering of osteoderms like some other sebecosuchians, but no osteoderms were found associated with either individual (although isolated osteoderms have been tentatively referred to this genus).

Classification

''Bergisuchus'' was identified as a sebecosuchian by Dr. Berg when it was first discovered, closely allied to the South American genus ''Sebecus'' as "aff. ''Sebecus''? n. sp.". It was later variously assigned to the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Baurusuchidae by Steel in 1973, and also in the now defunct family

Trematochampsidae Trematochampsidae is an extinct family of mesoeucrocodylian crocodyliforms. Fossils are present from Madagascar, Morocco, Niger, Argentina, and Brazil (in the case of '' Caririsuchus'', where some specimens have been found in the Romualdo Membe ...

by Buffetaut in 1988. At the time it was unclear what diagnostic traits where unique to each group and which were shared between them, and so the fragmentary ''Bergisuchus'' could not be confidently identified and was sometimes placed in ''

incertae sedis or is a term used for a taxonomy (biology), taxonomic group where its broader relationships are unknown or undefined. Alternatively, such groups are frequently referred to as "enigmatic taxa". In the system of open nomenclature, uncertainty ...

'' for this reason. In 2000, the sebecosuchian affinities of ''Bergisuchus'', particularly to ''Sebecus'', were established by Rossmann and colleagues in a thorough re-examination of the material, and it was assigned to its own

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

family, the Bergisuchidae, as it was considered too distinct from ''Sebecus'' to belong to the same family. The position of ''Bergisuchus'' as a close relative of ''Sebecus'' has since been supported by a number of

phylogenetic analyses In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as Computational phylogenetics, phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organ ...

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era is the Era (geology), era of Earth's Geologic time scale, geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Period (geology), Periods. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian r ...

and Cenozoic mesoeucrocodylians, although the interrelationships of ''Bergisuchus'', Sebecidae and other clades are not settled. The

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

s below are simplified from two recent phylogenetic analyses of mesoeucrocodylians, that of Pol ''et al.'' (2014) and of Piacentini Pinheiro ''et al.'' (2018), displaying the alternative arrangements of Sebecidae in either Sebecosuchia and Sebecia.

Sebecosuchia Sebecosuchia (meaning "Sobek crocodiles") is an extinct group of mesoeucrocodylian crocodyliforms that includes the families Sebecidae and Baurusuchidae. The group was long thought to have first appeared in the Late Cretaceous with the baurusu ...

is cladistically defined as the node containing

Sebecidae Sebecidae is an extinct family of prehistoric terrestrial sebecosuchian crocodylomorphs, known from the Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic of Europe and South America. They were the latest surviving group of non-crocodilian crocodylomorphs. The oldes ...

and

Baurusuchidae Baurusuchidae is a Gondwanan family of mesoeucrocodylians that lived during the Late Cretaceous. It is a group of terrestrial hypercarnivorous crocodilians from South America (Argentina and Brazil) and possibly Pakistan. Baurusuchidae has been, ...

, assuming a close relationship between the two.

Sebecia Sebecia is an extinct clade of mesoeucrocodylian crocodyliforms that includes peirosaurids and sebecids. It was first constructed in 2007 to include '' Hamadasuchus'', Peirosauridae, and ''Sebecus''. It was initially considered to be the sister ...

is a similar concept but for the node containing

and

Peirosauridae Peirosauridae is a Gondwanan family of mesoeucrocodylians that lived during the Cretaceous period. It was a clade of terrestrial crocodyliforms that evolved a rather dog-like skull, and were terrestrial carnivores. It was phylogenetically defined ...

. The validity of each clade depends on the position of Sebecidae within

Mesoeucrocodylia Mesoeucrocodylia is the clade that includes Eusuchia and crocodyliforms formerly placed in the paraphyletic group Mesosuchia. The group appeared during the Early Jurassic, and continues to the present day. Diagnosis It was long known that Me ...

, often involving its relationship to

Notosuchia Notosuchia is a clade of primarily Gondwanan mesoeucrocodylian Crocodylomorpha, crocodylomorphs that lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Some phylogeny, phylogenies recover Sebecosuchia as a clade within Notosuchia, others as a sister group ...

. The former analysis found ''Bergisuchus'' and ''Iberosuchus'' as sebecosuchians closely related to but excluded from Sebecidae, while the latter analysis recovers ''Bergisuchus'' well within Sebecidae, as per the definitions used in the study: Topology of Pol ''et al.'' (2014): Topology of Piacentini Pinheiro ''et al.'' (2018):

Palaeobiology

Palaeoecology

The Messel Pit is famous for its well-preserved fossils, which include semi-aquatic crocodylians such as ''

Asiatosuchus ''Asiatosuchus'' is an extinct genus of crocodyloid crocodilians that lived in Eurasia during the Paleogene. Many Paleogene crocodilians from Europe and Asia have been attributed to ''Asiatosuchus'' since the genus was named in 1940. These speci ...

'' and ''

Diplocynodon ''Diplocynodon'' is an extinct genus of eusuchian, either an alligatoroid crocodilian or a stem-group crocodilian, that lived during the Paleocene to Middle Miocene in Europe. Some species may have reached lengths of , while others probably did ...

''. Unlike these crocodylians, ''Bergisuchus'' was a small

hypercarnivore A hypercarnivore is an animal that has a diet that is more than 70% meat, either via active predation or by scavenging. The remaining non-meat diet may consist of non-animal foods such as fungi, fruits or other plant material. Some extant exampl ...

. Rossmann and colleagues speculated extensively about the palaeoecology of ''Bergisuchus''. They suggested that ''Bergisuchus'' did not inhabit the

fluvial A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of its course if it ru ...

and

lacustrine A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from t ...

habitats around the Messel and Geiseltal sites. They interpreted the rare, fragmented material as evidence for the bones being transported into these settings from elsewhere, compared to the more abundant and more complete crocodylians from these sites that were well preserved by the local conditions. They further speculated that ''Bergisuchus'' may have inhabited drier upland regions from these lakes and rivers, potentially coexisting alongside predatory

creodont Creodonta ("meat teeth") is a former order of extinct carnivorous placental mammals that lived from the early Paleocene to the late Miocene epochs in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Originally thought to be a single group of animals ance ...

mammals A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three middle e ...

in the Geiseltal area and avoiding competition with the similarly terrestrial but unrelated planocraniid crocodilians like ''

Boverisuchus ''Boverisuchus'' is an extinct genus of planocraniid crocodyliforms known from the early to middle Eocene (Ypresian to Lutetian stages) of Germany and western North America. It was a relatively small crocodyliform with an estimated total length ...

''. The reduced ziphodont dentition of ''Bergisuchus'' with large teeth concentrated at the front of the jaws is somewhat similar to that of baurusuchids such as ''

Stratiotosuchus ''Stratiotosuchus'' (from Greek, (stratiōtēs, "soldier") and (suchos, "crocodile")) is an extinct genus of baurusuchid mesoeucrocodylian from the Adamantina Formation in Brazil. It lived during the Late Cretaceous. The first fossils were foun ...

'', which have reduced their maxillary tooth count down to only 5 teeth. This has been suggested to be a specialisation for hunting large-sized prey items by imparting more powerful bites at the very front of the jaws. This is unlike the condition of most other sebecids, which have more generalised dentitions with similarly sized teeth throughout the jaw, which may have preferred smaller to mid-sized prey. The deeper snout and less compressed, stronger teeth of ''Bergisuchus'' also suggest that it was capable of withstanding greater forces relatively than planocraniids, and is inferred to be capable of catching and dismembering prey by thrashing its head in any direction, unlike planocraniids. The unusual differentiated

heterodont In anatomy, a heterodont (from Greek, meaning 'different teeth') is an animal which possesses more than a single tooth morphology. Human dentition is heterodont and diphyodont as an example. In vertebrates, heterodont pertains to animals wher ...

teeth were interpreted as evidence for a relatively complex method for processing food, and they suggested that ''Bergisuchus'' used the large canines at the front of the jaws as fangs and the smaller rear teeth to "chew" and process food before swallowing. They also suggested that the huge, exaggerated canines could possibly have been used as sexual signals or as weapons in

intraspecific competition Intraspecific competition is an interaction in population ecology, whereby members of the same species compete for limited resources. This leads to a reduction in fitness for both individuals, but the more fit individual survives and is able to ...

, rather than predation.

Palaeobiogeography

The presence of ''Bergisuchus'' in Europe has been regarded as evidence for a connection between the faunas from South America and Europe in the early Eocene, as other Cenozoic sebecosuchians are mostly known from South America. This link has been supported by the presence of other South American lineages contemporaneous with ''Bergisuchus'' in the Messel pit, including purported

phorusrhacid Phorusrhacids, colloquially known as terror birds, are an extinct family of large carnivorous, mostly flightless birds that were among the largest apex predators in South America during the Cenozoic era. Their definitive fossil records range from ...

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

and

herpetotheriid Herpetotheriidae is an extinct family of metatherians, closely related to marsupials. Species of this family are generally reconstructed as terrestrial, and are considered morphologically similar to modern opossums. They are suggested to have bee ...

marsupials Marsupials are a diverse group of mammals belonging to the infraclass Marsupialia. They are natively found in Australasia, Wallacea, and the Americas. One of marsupials' unique features is their reproductive strategy: the young are born in a ...

. Eocene European ecosystems containing sebecosuchians like ''Bergisuchus'' have been compared to those of later South America, with predator guilds composed of mammals, phorusrhacids and sebecosuchians, supporting this affinity. Furthermore, ''Bergisuchus'' and ''Iberosuchus'' do not appear to be closely related to the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

sebecosuchian ''

Doratodon ''Doratodon'' is an extinct genus of Late Cretaceous crocodylomorph that may have been a member of the Sebecosuchia. ''Doratodon'' was a relatively small animal with ziphodont teeth, meaning the teeth had flattened sides and serrated edges. Two ...

'', which was found across Europe during the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cre ...

. This appears to indicate that ''Bergisuchus'' and other European sebecosuchians did not descend from Cretaceous European sebecosuchians like ''Doratodon'', but was instead part of a separate invasion of sebecosuchians into Europe during the

Palaeogene The Paleogene Period ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Neogene Period Ma. It is the fir ...

from South America. This is further supported by the presence of the

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

n Eocene sebecosuchian ''

Eremosuchus ''Eremosuchus'' is an extinct genus of sebecosuchian mesoeucrocodylian. Fossils have been found from El Kohol, Algeria of Eocene age. It had serrated, ziphodont teeth. The genus was originally referred to the family Trematochampsidae in 1989. ...

'' in Africa, which has been suggested to be evidence that sebecosuchians reached Europe from South America via Africa, as opposed to through

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

where no sebecosuchian remains have been found.

Notes

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3281013 Notosuchia Prehistoric pseudosuchian genera Eocene crocodylomorphs Terrestrial crocodylomorphs Eocene reptiles of Europe