Context: Recently, the fossils uncovered on the Jurassic Coast in the United Kingdom of Turnersuchus hingleyae could be the oldest of its kind ever found.

Type: Thalattosuchian

• Often described as a sister species to modern crocodiles’ ancestors.

• It has been named in honour of the finders, Paul Turner and Lizzie Hingley.

• It could have between 183 and 174 million years ago.

• Colloquially known as a marine crocodile.

Look:

• long, slender snout

• Region of the skull that housed jaw muscles was particularly large

• Similar to modern gharial crocodiles

• found in major river systems in the north of India.

Key Importance

• This would have been useful considering that most of their prey were probably fast-moving fish and cephalopods like squids and octopuses.

• The newly-discovered fossils of Turnersuchus hingleyae represent the only complete Thalattosuchian of its age and date back to the early Jurassic, Pliensbachian period, which was about 185 million years ago

• Thalattosuchians and other crocodile-like animals could have originated around 15 million years farther than Turnersuchus.

• No expedition has found Thalattosuchians in Triassic rockets yet, which means that there is a ghost lineage. This means there is a group that existed, but they do not yet have fossil evidence.

• Until the discovery of the latest fossil, this ghost lineage extended from the end of the Triassic period till the Toarcian period. But now, it has been reduced by a few million years.