Reassessment of isolated reptilian teeth confirms the presence of ziphodont crocodylians during the Pliocene of New Guinea

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Ristevski, Jorgo
Molnar, Ralph E
Yates, Adam M
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2024
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The original publication on the Pliocene Otibanda Formation in Papua New Guinea briefly reported on crocodyliform fossils, including isolated teeth that were tentatively assigned to the notosuchian subclade Sebecosuchia. In this study, we reassess the crocodyliform material from the Otibanda Formation and provide the first detailed descriptions of the same, including the purported sebecosuchian teeth. Direct examination of these teeth confirms their ziphodont condition based on the labiolingual compression of the crowns and the presence of serrated mesial and distal carinae. In addition to the ziphodont teeth, there are also non-serrate conical teeth that are tentatively referred to an undetermined species of Crocodylus as well as fragmentary postcranial elements that we refer to as Crocodylia incertae sedis. Considering the geological age and geographical origin of the isolated ziphodont tooth crowns from Papua New Guinea, they are unlikely to belong to a sebecosuchian crocodyliform. Instead, it is more plausible that they are referable to Mekosuchinae, a highly diverse crocodylian clade inclusive of ziphodont forms that was prevalent on mainland Australia for most of the Cenozoic.

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Historical Biology

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This accepted manuscript is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advance online version.

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Ristevski, J; Molnar, RE; Yates, AM, Reassessment of isolated reptilian teeth confirms the presence of ziphodont crocodylians during the Pliocene of New Guinea, Historical Biology, 2024

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