Mystriosuchus
Name:
Mystriosuchus
(Spoon crocodile).
Phonetic: Miss-tree-oh-soo-kus.
Named By: Fraas - 1896.
Synonyms: Belodon planirostris.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia,
Archosauria, Phytosauria, Phytosauridae.
Species: M. planirostis
(type),
M. westphali.
Diet: Piscivore.
Size: About 4 meters long.
Known locations: Germany, Italy.
Time period: Norian of the Triassic.
Fossil representation: At least two specimens.
Just
like the
later crocodiles, the phytosaurs evolved a variety of different head
shapes that saw some of them becoming specialised hunters. In this
respect Mystriosuchus developed a very thin snout
that saw it take on a
resemblance to a modern day gavial, but did so long before the
crocodiles. This is a case of convergent evolution where a
specialised body feature occurs again to deal with similar lifestyle.
Mystriosuchus
with their
slender jaws would have experienced dramatically less resistance as
they were opened and closed in the water than their broader snouted
relatives. This greatly increased the opening and closing speed of
the jaws, making it much easier for Mystriosuchus
to catch prey like
fish between them. However these very gracile jaws would not have
been very strong, meaning that Mystriosuchus was
probably restricted
to hunting small prey like fish as attacking larger terrestrial animals
would have carried a much higher risk of serious injury to the jaws.
To put this in perspective, if one of the jaws ever became broken,
the Mystriosuchus in question would not be able to
feed, and would
end up starving to death.
The
habitat of Mystriosuchus
was long thought to have been the river systems of Triassic Europe
where it could have lounged upon the river banks warming itself in
the sun before entering the water to either cool off or hunt for fish.
An Italian specimen however seems to have come from a marine
(saltwater) environment, something that suggests that
Mystriosuchus would have been active on a river
upstream, all the way
down to the estuary where the river met the sea, and possibly even
along some stretches of coastline. Again this shows phytosaurs living
like the later crocodiles, in this case perhaps best represented by
the crocodile Teleosaurus
from the Mid Jurassic that not only had very
similar hunting adaptations to Mystriosuchus, but
also a
estuarine/coastal distribution.
Although
today known as
Mystriosuchus, the fossils that make up the
holotype of the genus
were originally attributed to another phytosaur named Belodon
by
Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer in 1863. Named as Belodon
planirostris, these represented a separate species from the
Belodon
type species (B. plieningeri) until Fraas
erected them as their
own genus in 1896. Standard procedure for doing this saw the
original species name being used to establish the type species of the
new genus which is how fossils once attributed to Belodon
planirostris
became Mystriosuchus planirostris. Additionally
slim snouted
phytosaurs were once thought to be the females to the deep snouted
forms on the grounds that taller snouts were interpreted as being
display devices for males to attract the females. Today however this
notion is no longer considered valid as the deep and slim snouted
phytosaurs are seen to interpret different genera adapted to different
predatory lifestyles.
Further reading
- Two new phytosaur species (Archosauria, Crurotarsi) from the Upper
Triassic of southwest Germany. - Neues Jahrbuch f�r Geologie und
Pal�ontologie, Monatshefte 2000(8):467-484. - A. Hungerb�hler &
A. P. Hunt - 2000.
-The Late Triassic phylosaur Mystriosuchus westphali,
with a revision
of the genus. - Palaeontology 45(2): 377-418. - A. Hungerb�hler - 2002.
- Complete specimen of Mystriosuchus (Reptilia, Phytosauria) from the
Norian (Late Triassic) of Lombardy (Northern Italy). - Rivista Italiana
di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia. 109 (3): 475–498. - E. Gozzi &
S. A. Renesto - 2003.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Random favourites
 |
 |
 |
 |