''Stolokrosuchus'' 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 ...

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 found in the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous (geochronology, geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphy, chronostratigraphic name) is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 143.1 ...

Elrhaz Formation The Elrhaz Formation is a geological Formation (geology), formation in Niger, West Africa. Its strata date back to the Early Cretaceous, about 125 to 112 million years ago. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the ...

Niger Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...

Discovery and naming

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 ...

includes a skull with a long thin snout and bony knobs on the

prefrontal Prefrontal may refer to: *Prefrontal bone, a skull bone in some tetrapods *Prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain of a mammal *Prefrontal scales The prefrontal scales on snakes and other reptiles are the scales adjacent and anterior to the fr ...

, and it was found in the

Ténéré Desert The Ténéré (Tuareg: Tenere, literally: "desert") is a desert region in south central Sahara. It comprises a vast plain of sand stretching from northeastern Niger to western Chad, occupying an area of over . The Ténéré's boundaries are said ...

. Indeterminate teeth from the same locality as the holotype have also been assigned to the genus. ''Stolokrosuchus'' was described in 2000 by Hans Larsson and Boubacar Gado. 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 ...

is ''S. lapparenti''.

Phylogeny

Larsson & Gado (2000) initially described it as related to

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 ...

, if not a member of that

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 ...

. One study has shown it to be related to ''

Elosuchus ''Elosuchus'' is an extinct genus of neosuchian crocodyliform that lived during the Middle Cretaceous of what is now Africa (Niger, Morocco and Algeria). Description and taxonomy ''Elosuchus'' had an elongated snout like a gharial and was probab ...

''. However, more recent works usually find ''Stolokrosuchus'' to be one of the

basalmost In phylogenetics, basal is the direction of the ''base'' (or root) of a rooted phylogenetic tree or cladogram. The term may be more strictly applied only to nodes adjacent to the root, or more loosely applied to nodes regarded as being close to th ...

neosuchian, only distantly related to the

elosuchid ''Elosuchus'' is an extinct genus of neosuchian crocodyliform that lived during the Middle Cretaceous of what is now Africa (Niger, Morocco and Algeria). Description and taxonomy ''Elosuchus'' had an elongated snout like a gharial and was probab ...

pholidosaurid Pholidosauridae is an extinct Family (biology), family of aquatic neosuchian mesoeucrocodylian crocodylomorphs. Fossils have been found in Europe (Denmark, England, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden), Africa (Algeria, Niger, Mali, Morocco and Tu ...

, ''

''. It was a semiaquatic crocodylomorph. The cladogram following by Nicholl ''et al.'' (2021):

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3335330 Crocodyliformes Prehistoric pseudosuchian genera Early Cretaceous crocodylomorphs of Africa