Edentosuchus is a genus of crocodyliform. It is known from found in rocks of the Early Cretaceous-age Tugulu Group from the Dzungaria, Xinjiang, China. Two partial skulls and several neck are known to date. An articulated partial skeleton may also belong to this genus, but there is no overlapping material between it and known Edentosuchus specimens.
History
Edentosuchus was described in 1973 by
Yang Zhongjian (C. C. Young), and is
holotype IVPP V 3236, a partial skull and associated neck vertebrae. The
type species is
E. tienshanensis.
A joint Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County-National Geological Museum of China expedition recovered another partial skull in 2000.
[ Yang originally assigned it to its own family (Edentosuchidae) within Protosuchia,][ but later research by Diego Pol and colleagues using the new material found it to be a protosuchid.][
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Description
Edentosuchus had markedly heterodont teeth. In the upper jaw, the teeth in the tip of the snout () were conical. Following them, the first two teeth of the had three cusps. The next two had numerous small cusps, and the fifth and last was bulbous, larger than others, and featured small cusps. In the lower jaw, several of the nine teeth on each side featured small cusps, but the second tooth was a greatly enlarged fang. The skull was only a few centimetres (or inches) long, and had a short, relatively narrow snout and wide posterior section.[
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Paleoecology
Edentosuchus lived in a hot, seasonally arid floodplain environment. Living alongside it were turtles, dsungaripteridae , and theropoda, sauropoda, , psittacosauridae, and ornithopod .[
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