Itasuchidae is a

Gondwana Gondwana ( ; ) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia (continent), Australia, Zea ...

n family of

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 that lived during 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 ...

period Period may refer to: Common uses * Period (punctuation) * Era, a length or span of time *Menstruation, commonly referred to as a "period" Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (o ...

. It was a

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

of terrestrial crocodyliforms that evolved a rather dog-like form, and were terrestrial carnivores.

Phylogeny

The phylogenetic analysis of Carvalho ''et al.'' (2004) found a sister relationship between ''

Malawisuchus ''Malawisuchus'' (meaning "Malawi crocodile") is an extinct genus of notosuchian mesoeucrocodylian from the Early Cretaceous Dinosaur Beds of Malawi. It was described in 1997 by Elizabeth Gomani as a member of the family Notosuchidae. The type ...

'' and ''Itasuchus''. They named this node family Itasuchidae, and found it to be a member of Peirosauroidea. However, their analysis didn't include any

neosuchia Neosuchia is a clade within Mesoeucrocodylia that includes all modern extant crocodilians and their closest fossil relatives. It is defined as the most inclusive clade containing all Crocodylomorpha, crocodylomorphs more closely related to ''Croc ...

ns or (other than ''Itasuchus'') trematochampsids. Later studies placed ''Itasuchus'' as a trematochampsid (and not closely related to the more derived notosuchian ''Malawisuchus''). In their 2018 paper renaming ''"Goniopholis" paulistanus'' as ''Roxochampsa'', Pinheiro et al. (2018) redefined Itasuchidae so that only ziphosuchians more closely related to ''Itasuchus'' than '' Barreirosuchus,

Montealtosuchus ''Montealtosuchus'' is an extinct genus of terrestrial crocodyliform. It was discovered in 2004 in the Bauru Basin of Brazil, from Campanian-Maastrichtian deposits of the Adamantina Formation. The species was described in 2007, and assigned to t ...

Mahajangasuchus ''Mahajangasuchus'' is an extinct genus of crocodyliform which had blunt, laterally compressed and serrated teeth. The type species, ''M. insignis'', lived during the Late Cretaceous; its fossils have been found in the Maevarano Formation in nort ...

,'' and ''

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 ...

'' were included in the family.

References

Notosuchia Early Cretaceous crocodylomorphs Late Cretaceous crocodylomorphs Early Cretaceous first appearances Maastrichtian extinctions Pseudosuchian families {{paleo-archosaur-stub