Ceratosuchops

Ceratosuchops is a genus of spinosaurid from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian) of Britain. In 2021, the type species C. inferodios was named and described by a team of paleontologists including Chris Barker, Darren Naish, David Hone and others.

Discovery & Naming

The name of the theropod means; horned crocodile face. Ceratosuchops inferodios; specific name means "hell heron", in reference to the ecology 'presumed' by the research team. The holotype remains of this taxon consist of IWCMS 2014.95.5 (premaxillary bodies), IWCMS 2021.30 (a posterior premaxilla fragment) and IWCMS 2014.95.1-3 (a nearly complete braincase), all of which were recovered from rocks in Chilton Chine of the Wessex Formation. Referred remains include a single right postorbital (IWCMS 2014.95.4).

The authors recovered Ceratosuchops as a member of the newly-erected clade, Ceratosuchopsini, closely related to Suchomimus and the coeval Riparovenator.

Description

Ceratosuchops is estimated to measure 7.8 meters (25.6 feet) in length based on the skeletal reconstruction in the describing paper by Dan Folkes, 2021. Ceratosuchops lived in a dry mediterranean habitat in the Wessex Formation, where rivers were home to riparian zones. Akin to most spinosaurs, it would have fed on available small to medium sized aquatic and terrestrial prey in these areas.

Both would have been heron-like shoreline hunters, wading out into water and thrusting the head down quickly to grab things like fish, small turtles, et cetera, and on land would do something similar, grabbing baby dinosaurs or the like. They would basically have eaten anything small they could grab," said paleontologist and study co-author David Hone of Queen Mary University of London; with a series of low horns and bumps on the brow region, the name also refers to the predator’s likely hunting style, which would have been like that of a heron. Herons famously catch aquatic prey around the margins of waterways, but their diet is far more flexible than is generally appreciated and can include terrestrial prey too.

They seem to be heron-like in their habits so they would be wading in shallow water and taking fish and other swimming things like small turtles and young crocodiles and doing the same on land going after baby dinosaurs and mammals,” Hone said. “They would have been able to strike down hard and fast, just as herons do, so it would be a quick snap down on something relatively small

Ceratosuchops and Riparovenator roamed a floodplain environment bathed in a subtropical Mediterranean-like climate. Forest fires occasionally ravaged the landscape, with fossils of burned wood found throughout Isle of Wight cliffs.  With a large river and other bodies of water attracting plant-eating dinosaurs and hosting numerous bony fish, sharks and crocodiles, the habitat provided Ceratosuchops and Riparovenator plenty of hunting opportunities, Barker said.  These two cousins may have lived at the same time, perhaps differing in prey preference, or may have been separated a bit in time, the researchers said. There was a third roughly contemporaneous spinosaur named Baryonyx, whose fossils were unearthed in the 1980s, that lived nearby and was about the same size, maybe slightly smaller.

“We found the skulls of Ceratosuchops inferodios and Riparovenator milnerae to differ not only from Baryonyx, but also one another, suggesting the UK housed a greater diversity of spinosaurids than previously thought,” said Chris Barker, a Ph.D. student at the University of Southampton.