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Concept
Penghusuchus
Summary
Penghusuchus is an extinct genus of gavialid crocodylian. It is known from a skeleton found in Middle to Upper Miocene rocks of Penghu Island, off Taiwan. The taxon was described in 2009 by Shan and colleagues; the type species is P. pani. It may be related to two other fossil Asian gavialids: Toyotamaphimeia machikanensis of Japan and Hanyusuchus sinensis of South China. It was a medium-sized gavialid with an estimated total length of .
On 25 March 2006, on the coast of Neian, Shiyu, Penghu Islands, an excavator driver Mr. Ming-Kuo Pan found a fossilized crocodylian tooth exposed in the sandstone interlayer between basaltic rocks and then dug up a whole skeleton. The skeleton is 70% complete and was found in the Yuwentao Formation of the middle Miocene (more than 10 million years ago), and its sedimentary rocks were dated as 17-15 million years ago, according to the pollen dating in the stratum, making it one of the oldest and most complete vertebrate fossils known in Taiwan. The genus name is derived from its discovery site in Penghu, and the species name honored its discoverer, Mr. Ming-Kuo Pan. It is now considered to represent a unique and extinct gavialid clade in East Asia, along with the Pleistocene Toyotamaphimeia from Japan and Taiwan and the Holocene Hanyusuchus from South China.
Penghusuchus has several diagnostic characters, including: anterior process of jugal, prefrontal and lacrimal is extending as the same level; anterior process of frontal truncated and attach with nasals in W-shaped; choana is triangular with a sharp anterior angle, and its lateral borders and floor of nasopharyngeal duct form Y-shaped ridge-like prominence on ventral surface of pterygoid; presence of five maxillary teeth within the range of the suborbital fenestra; 7th maxillary tooth is the largest in the first wave of maxillary teeth and maxilla is bulges; angular with a mid-dorsal process excluding surangular from posterodorsal border of external mandibular fenestra.
Official source
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