Aplestosuchus is an extinct genus of baurusuchid mesoeucrocodylian known from the Late Cretaceous Adamantina Formation of São Paulo, southern Brazil.
Discovery[]
Aplestosuchus is known solely from the holotype LPRP/USP 0229a, an articulated and nearly complete skeleton including the skull, housed at the Laboratório de Paleontologia, Universidade de São Paulo. Additionally, isolated teeth and skull bones of an unidentified sphagesaurid crocodyliform were preserved in the abdominal cavity of LPRP/USP 0229a, and assigned to the specimen number LPRP/USP 0229b. The find represents direct evidence of predation between different taxa of crocodyliforms in the fossil record.
LPRP/USP 0229 was found in the Buruti creek area, of the General Salgado municipality, São Paulo, in southern Brazil. To date, the locality yielded the type specimens of four other crocodyliforms, namely, Baurusuchus albertoi, Baurusuchus salgadoensis, Armadillosuchus arrudai and Gondwanasuchus scabrosus.
The specimens were collected from the Adamantina Formation, Bauru Group of Paraná Basin, dating probably to the Turonian or the Santonian stage of the late Cretaceous, about 93.5-83.5 million years ago.
Description[]
The only known specimen of Aplestosuchus is more than one meter long from the tip of the skull to the base of the tail. It was preserved lying on its side, in the same death pose of other baurusuchids collected in the site.
LPRP/USP 0229a, preserved in two different blocks, suffered some post-mortem disarticulation, and as a result most of the tail and the distal parts of the hind limbs were lost. Aplestosuchus, like other baurusuchids, was a fully terrestrial predator.
Reaching up to four meters in length, baurusuchids were the apex predators of the South American Late Cretaceous ecosystems.
They were surpassed only by large theropods, however, these are very rare in the Adamantina Formation and represented by isolated and fragmentary teeth mostly attributed to abelisaurids and carcharodontosaurids, and isolated megaraptorid and unenlagiine vertebrae.
The sphagesaurid material recovered in the abdominal cavity of Aplestosuchus was considered more likely derived from predation, not scavenging, given its size relation to the prey, as sphagesaurids were usually much smaller than about one fourth of derived baurusuchids.
Paleobiology[]
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