''Congosaurus'' is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

dyrosaurid Dyrosauridae is a family of extinct neosuchian crocodyliforms that lived from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) to the Eocene. Dyrosaurid fossils are globally distributed, having been found in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South A ...

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 M ...

Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s have been found from Lândana, in

Angola , national_anthem = "Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

and date back to the

Paleocene The Paleocene, ( ) or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name is a combination of the Ancient Greek ''pal ...

epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...

. In 1952 and 1964 ''Congosaurus'' was proposed to be

synonymous A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

with '' Dyrosaurus''. The genus was later thought synonymous with ''

Hyposaurus ''Hyposaurus'' is a genus of extinct marine dyrosaurid crocodyliform. Fossils have been found in Paleocene aged rocks of the Iullemmeden Basin in West Africa, Campanian–Maastrichtian (Late Cretaceous) Shendi Formation of Sudan and Maastri ...

'' in 1976 and 1980. It has since been proven a distinct genus of dyrosaurid separate from both ''Dyrosaurus'' and ''Hyposaurus''. In 2007, a new species of ''Congosaurus'' was constructed after previously being assigned to '' Rhabdognathus'', and named ''C. compressus'', extending the geographic range of the genus into the present-day

Sahara , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

. Lateromedially compressed teeth show its close relation to ''C. bequaerti''.

References

Paleocene crocodylomorphs Prehistoric pseudosuchian genera Prehistoric marine crocodylomorphs Paleogene reptiles of Africa Dyrosaurids {{paleo-archosaur-stub