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Thalattosuchia evolution studied with phylogenetically-informed statistical analyses (free pdf)

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Ben Creisler

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Jan 30, 2025, 10:18:37 AMJan 30
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Ben Creisler

A new paper:

Free pdf:

Tom Forêt, Paul Aubier, Stéphane Jouve & Jorge Cubo (2025)
Analysing Thalattosuchia palaeobiodiversity through the prism of phylogenetic comparative methods
Palaeontology 68(1): e70000
doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.70000
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pala.70000

Free pdf:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/pala.70000


Thalattosuchia are a particularly diverse group of mostly marine crocodylomorphs that lived during most of the Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous. Previous studies have sought to uncover the factors influencing Crocodylomorpha evolution, yielding mixed results, possibly due to Thalattosuchia's unique ecological niche and controversial phylogenetic placement among crocodylomorphs. Here, we propose a Thalattosuchia-focused study using phylogenetically-informed statistical analyses. First, we tested the phylogenetic structure of thalattosuchian extinction at various geological transitions. We then tested the influence of biotic and abiotic factors explaining thalattosuchian diversity at the aforementioned crises. Finally, we tested whether diet was an additional explanatory factor. We found that: (1) thalattosuchian extinction at the Lower–Middle Jurassic transition was phylogenetically structured and associated with signs of snout reduction possibly explained by the colonization of emptied ecological niches, allowing the emergence of Machimosaurinae and Geosaurinae; (2) we observed higher local temperatures for Thalattosuchia after the Middle–Upper Jurassic and Jurassic–Cretaceous transitions, the former being in accordance with most climatic literature and the latter being subject to more caution; finally, (3) we corroborated previous studies about skull shape and found that durophagous teleosauroids tended to have larger body sizes than any other diet, possibly as a result of ecological specialization. We also found evidence for niche partitioning among piscivorous and macrophagous metriorhynchoids that is observable by a size range extension.

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