''Gasparinisuchus'' 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 peirosaurid

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 ...

n known from 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 ...

(

Santonian The Santonian is an age in the geologic timescale or a chronostratigraphic stage. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 86.3 ± 0.7 mya ( million years ago) and 83.6 ± 0.7 m ...

to early

Campanian The Campanian is the fifth of six ages of the Late Cretaceous epoch on the geologic timescale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). In chronostratigraphy, it is the fifth of six stages in the Upper Cretaceous Series. Campa ...

stage) of

Neuquén Neuquén (; ) is the capital city of the Argentine province of Neuquén and of the Confluencia Department, located in the east of the province. It occupies a strip of land west of the confluence of the Limay and Neuquén rivers which form t ...

and

Mendoza Province Mendoza (), officially the Province of Mendoza, is a province of Argentina, in the western central part of the country in the Cuyo region. It borders San Juan to the north, La Pampa and Neuquén to the south, San Luis to the east, and the r ...

s, western central

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. It contains a single species, ''Gasparinisuchus peirosauroides''.

Discovery

''Gasparinisuchus'' is known only from two individuals. 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 ...

MOZ 1750 PV represented by partial

skull The skull, or cranium, is typically a bony enclosure around the brain of a vertebrate. In some fish, and amphibians, the skull is of cartilage. The skull is at the head end of the vertebrate. In the human, the skull comprises two prominent ...

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 ...

s with teeth and various associated

postcrania The postcranium ("behind the cranium"; plural: postcrania) or postcranial skeleton in zoology and vertebrate paleontology is the skeleton apart from the skull. The postcranium encompasses the axial skeleton, which includes the entirety of the verte ...

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of most animals. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is a rigid outer shell that holds up an organism's shape; the endoskeleton, a rigid internal fra ...

including vertebrae and dermal plates which are currently missing. It was originally described by Gasparini (1982) and Gasparini ''et al.'' (1991) and referred to '' Peirosaurus torminni''. MOZ 1750 PV was found in the Loma de la Lata locality of the

Neuquén Province Neuquén () is a Provinces of Argentina, province of Argentina, located in the west of the country, at the northern end of Patagonia. It borders Mendoza Province to the north, Rio Negro Province to the southeast, and Chile to the west. It also me ...

Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...

. It was originally reported as collected from sediments of the Rio Colorado Subgroup,

Neuquén Group The Neuquén Group is a geologic unit, group of geologic formations found in Argentina. Rocks in the Neuquén Group fall within the Cenomanian to early Campanian stages of the Late Cretaceous Period. It overlies the older Lohan Cura Formation and ...

. Later, Hugo and Leanza (2001) noted that this specimen was actually collected from the underlying

Portezuelo Formation The Portezuelo Formation is a geologic formation of Late Cretaceous (Turonian, Late Turonian to Coniacian, Early Coniacian) age, outcropping in the Mendoza Province, Mendoza, Río Negro Province, Río Negro and Neuquén Province, Neuquén provinc ...

of the Rio Neuquén Subgroup, Neuquén Group. More recent stratigraphic work on this area identified that horizon as belonging to the younger,

Coniacian The Coniacian is an age or stage in the geologic timescale. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series and spans the time between 89.8 ± 1 Ma and 86.3 ± 0.7 Ma (million years ago). The Coniacian is preceded by ...

-age,

Plottier Formation The Plottier Formation is a geologic formation that outcrops in the Argentine Patagonian provinces of Río Negro and Neuquén. It is the younger of two formations belonging to the Río Neuquén Subgroup within the Neuquén Group of the Neuquén ...

of the Rio Neuquén Subgroup. This horizon is currently considered to pertain to the

-age

Bajo de la Carpa Formation The Bajo de la Carpa Formation is a geologic formation of the Neuquén Basin that outcrop, crops out in northern Patagonia, in the provinces of Río Negro Province, Río Negro and Neuquén Province, Neuquén, Argentina. It is the oldest of two for ...

of the Rio Colorado Subgroup. The referred specimen, PV- CRIDC-12, represented by right

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 ...

and

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 ...

, isolated teeth, and part of the postcranial skeleton. It was originally tentatively referred to ''P. torminni'' by Praderio ''et al.'' (2009). It was found in the Área de Cañadón Amarrillo locality, of the

, Patagonia. It was collected from the slightly younger early

-age

Anacleto Formation The Anacleto Formation is a geologic formation with outcrops in the Argentina, Argentine Patagonian provinces of Mendoza Province, Mendoza, Río Negro Province, Río Negro, and Neuquén Province, Neuquén. It is the youngest formation within the ...

, also part of the Neuquén Group.

Description

The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

''G. peirosauroides'' was described and named in 2012 on the basis of MOZ 1750 PV, which was originally referred to '' Peirosaurus torminni''. PV-CRIDC-12 was also excluded from ''P. torminni'' and referred to ''Gasparinisuchus'' on the basis of similarities to the holotype. The maxilla of PV-CRIDC-12 shares a number of derived features with ''Gasparinisucus'', indicating a tall, broad snout, maxillary teeth implanted in discrete alveoli, a convex alveolar maxillary edge at the level of the third tooth and similar position and relative size of the maxillary teeth. Comprarisons with the holotype of ''P. torminni'' are uninformative because the premaxilla of PV-CRIDC-12 is poorly preserved. ''Gasparinisuchus'' differs from other peirosaurids in having a broad snout and in lacking an

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 ...

. Although overlapping materials between the ''Gasparinisuchus'' and ''P. torminni'' limited to the premaxilla and the dentition, ''Gasparinisuchus'' can be differentiate from ''Peirosaurus'' on the basis of its broad, rounded rostrum, anteroposteriorly short premaxilla, reduced perinareal fossa, and short premaxillary interdental spaces. ''Peirosaurus'' is known from the late

Maastrichtian The Maastrichtian ( ) is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) geologic timescale, the latest age (geology), age (uppermost stage (stratigraphy), stage) of the Late Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or Upper Cretaceous series (s ...

(latest Cretaceous) of Brazil, and the presence of MOZ 1750 PV in Argentina was originally taken as evidence for a link between Brazilian and Argentinian Late Cretaceous faunas. The removal of MOZ 1750 PV from the genus ''Peirosaurus'' suggests that the older Argentinian and younger Brazilian faunas were mostly distinct. The phylogenetic position of MOZ 1750 PV was previously tested in several recent analyses under the taxon name ''P. torminni''. The following cladogram simplified after a comprehensive analysis of notosuchians presented by Alan H. Turner and Joseph J. W. Sertich in 2010.

Etymology

''Gasparinisuchus'' was first described and named by Agustín G. Martinelli, Joseph J.W. Sertich, Alberto C. Garrido and Ángel M. Praderio in

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

and the

is ''Gasparinisuchus peirosauroides''. The generic name honors the vertebrate paleontologist Zulma Brandoni de Gasparini for her work on South American

crocodyliform Crocodyliformes is a clade of Crurotarsi, crurotarsan archosaurs, the group often traditionally referred to as "crocodilians". They are the first members of Crocodylomorpha to possess many of the features that define later relatives. They are the ...

s, and ''suchus'' from 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 ...

''Souchos'', which refers to the Egyptian crocodile-headed god

Sobek Sobek (), also known as Suchus (), was an ancient Egyptian deities, ancient Egyptian deity with a complex and elastic history and nature. He is associated with the Nile crocodile and is often represented as a crocodile-headed humanoid, if not a ...

. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

is derived from '' Peirosaurus'', the type genus of the Peirosauridae to which specimens of ''Gasparinisuchus'' were initially assigned, and from Greek ''ides'' meaning shaped. It refers to the importance of the holotype specimen as the basis for the designation of the Family Peirosauridae by Gasparini (1982).

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5526602 Late Cretaceous crocodylomorphs of South America Fossil taxa described in 2012 Terrestrial crocodylomorphs Peirosauridae Anacleto Formation Prehistoric pseudosuchian genera Cretaceous Argentina