Barinasuchus

Barinasuchus (meaning "Barinas crocodile", in reference to where the type material was found) is an extinct genus of sebecid mesoeucrocodylian. It lived in Argentina, Peru, and Venezuela between the middle Eocene and the Late Miocene, ~42–11.6 Ma. Described in 2007, based on a severely damaged specimen from which only a snout tip was recovered, Barinasuchus is known from a single species, B. arveloi, named after Alberto Arvelo Torrealba, a local educator and poet. The type specimen of Barinasuchus, discovered by road workers in Venezuela in 1973, originally consisted of a substantial portion of the skeleton, though much of it was accidentally destroyed when they attempted to excavate it, leaving only a partial snout and mandible (lower jaw). The specimen comes from the Miocene-age Parángula Formation, and was described in 2007 by Alfredo Paolillo and Omar J. Linares. A second specimen of Barinasuchus was recovered from the Miocene Ipururo Formation of Peru, and was described in 1977 by Éric Buffetaut and Robert Hoffstetter, though was originally assigned to Sebecus huilensis (now Langstonia). Another was recovered from the Eocene-age Divisadero Largo Formation of Argentina in 1984 by Zulma Brandoni de Gasparini. Barinasuchus' body length has been estimated, based on comparisons with other crocodyliforms, at between 6.3–10 m (21–33 ft), though smaller estimates of 3–4 m (9.8–13.1 ft) were suggested more recently. Its body mass was initially estimated at 1,610–1,720 kg (3,550–3,790 lb), which would make it considerably larger than any terrestrial predatory mammal alive today. However, a smaller estimate of 500 kg (1,100 lb) has since been put forward. Barinasuchus was heterodont, meaning that it possessed two types of teeth. Those of the premaxilla and the front of the maxilla were longer and more conical than those further back, which were shorter and thinner. Its mandible was very robust in comparison to...