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TREMATOCHAMPSA
(tre-mat-o-champ-sa)
Named By: E. Buffetaut in 1974
Time Period: Late Cretaceous
Location: Niger - In Beceten Formation
Size: Unavailable
Diet: Carnivore
Fossil(s): Partial remains
Classification: | Chordata | Reptilia | Archosauromorpha | Crurotarsi | Crocodylomorpha | Mesoeucrocodylia | Trematochampsidae |
About

Trematochampsa is an extinct genus of crocodyliform from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian age) In Beceten Formation of Niger. The type species, T. taqueti, was described by Eric Buffetaut in 1974. A second species, T. oblita, was named from Madagascar in 1979, but was renamed Miadanasuchus in 2009.

Trematochampsa gives its name to the Trematochampsidae, a poorly known group of fossil crocodiles. However, the labile phylogenetic position of Trematochampsa in many studies has been attributed to character conflict, leading many authors to exclude this genus from many cladistic analyses, but Sertich et al. (2014) noted that the referred material of Trematochampsa consists of more than one crocodyliform taxon, so they opted to use only the cranial material in the dataset for the cladistic analysis of Rukwasuchus and recommended removing the postcranial material from Trematochampsa. The analysis recovered Trematochampsa as a member of Peirosauridae, rendering Trematochampsidae a junior synonym of Peirosuchidae.

Read more about Trematochampsa at Wikipedia
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