Elosuchus
Encyclopedia
Elosuchus is an extinct genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of neosuchia
Neosuchia
Neosuchia is an unranked clade within Mesoeucrocodylia that includes all modern extant crocodilians and their closest fossil relatives. It is defined as the most inclusive clade containing all crocodylomorphs more closely related to Crocodylus niloticus than to Notosuchus terrestris...

n crocodyliform
Crocodyliformes
Crocodyliformes is a clade of crurotarsan archosaurs, the group often traditionally referred to as "crocodilians."In 1988, Michael J. Benton and James M. Clark argued that all traditional names for well-known groups of animals should be restricted to their crown clades, that is, used only for...

 that lived during the Early Cretaceous
Early Cretaceous
The Early Cretaceous or the Lower Cretaceous , is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous...

 of what is now North Africa (Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

, Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

 and Niger
Niger
Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...

).
The genus contains two species, E. cherifiensis from Algeria and Morocco, formerly described as a species of Thoracosaurus
Thoracosaurus
Thoracosaurus is an extinct genus of gavialoid crocodilian which existed during the Late Cretaceous and early Paleocene. It contains the species Thoracosaurus neocesariensis in North America and Thoracosaurus macrorhynchus in Europe. A number of species have been referred to this genus, but most...

by Lavocat, and E. felixi from Niger. The genus has been recognized to be separate from Thoracosaurus by Broin in 2002, who created the family Elosuchidae that also contains the genus Stolokrosuchus
Stolokrosuchus
Stolokrosuchus is an extinct genus of neosuchian crocodylomorph that lived during the Early Cretaceous. Its fossils, including a skull with a long thin snout and bony knobs on the prefontals, have been found in Niger. Stolokrosuchus was described in 2000 by Hans Larsson and Boubacar Gado. The...

from Niger.
Elosuchus had an elongated snout like a gharial
Gharial
The gharial , , also called Indian gavial or gavial, is the only surviving member of the once well-represented family Gavialidae, a long-established group of crocodilians with long, slender snouts...

and was probably a fully aquatic animal.
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