Bergisuchus

Bergisuchus Temporal range: Eocene
Bergisuchus dietrichbergi mandible
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Superorder:	Crocodylomorpha
Branch:	†Sebecosuchia
Clade:	†Sebecia
Family:	†Bergisuchidae Rossmann et al., 2000
Genus:	†Bergisuchus Berg, 1966
Species
†B. dietrichbergi Kuhn, 1968

Bergisuchus is an extinct genus of sebecosuchian mesoeucrocodylian. Fossils have been found from the Eocene Messel Pit in Germany. Bergisuchus was originally classified as a sebecosuchian, supposedly the first to be found outside South America, and later assigned to Trematochampsidae in 1988.^[1] Later that year it was reclassified as a basal baurusuchid.^[2] In 2000, the genus was given its own family, Bergisuchidae.^[3]

Bergisuchus is known from a holotype rostrum from the Messel Pit, first described in 1966, and a mandible from an open-pit coal mine near Halle in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.^[3] The Messel Pit is famous for its well-preserved fossils, which include semiaquatic crocodyliforms such as Asiatosuchus and Diplocynodon. Unlike other crocodyliforms present in the Messel Pit, Bergisuchus was a small terrestrial hypercarnivore.^[4]

References

1. Turner, A. H.; Calvo, J. O. (2005). "A new sebecosuchian crocodyliform from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 25 (1): 87–98. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2005)025[0087:ANSCFT]2.0.CO;2.
2. Carroll, R.L. (1988) Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. WH Freeman and Company, New York ISBN 0-7167-1822-7
3. Rossmann, T.; Rauhe, M.; Ortega, F. (2000). "Studies on Cenozoic crocodiles: 8. Bergisuchus dietrichbergi Kuhn (Sebecosuchia: Bergisuchidae n. fam.) from the Middle Eocene of Germany, some new systematic and biological conclusions". Paläontologische Zeitschrift. 74 (3): 379–392. doi:10.1007/BF02988108.
4. Jordi Agusti and Mauricio Anton (2002) Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids: 65 Million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe. Columbia University Press.