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Kentisuchus is an extinct genus of tomistomine crocodylian. It is considered one of the most basal members of the subfamily. Fossils have been found from England and France that date back to the early Eocene. The genus has also been recorded from Ukraine, but it unclear whether specimens from Ukraine are referable to Kentisuchus.
Contents
Species
The genus Kentisuchus was erected by Charles Mook in 1955 for the basal tomistomine "Crocodylus" toliapicus, described by Richard Owen, in 1849. William Buckland named "Crocodylus" spenceri on the basis of a partial skull found from the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, England. In 1888 Richard Lydekker considered "C." toliapicus synonymous with "C." champsoides and "C." arduini, named by De Zigno, and reapplied the name "C." spenceri to all of these species.
The genus name Kentisuchus was constructed only after it was realized that these tomistomine specimens were clearly distinct from the genus Crocodylus and that some specimens originally assigned to "C." spenceri belonged to entirely different genera and species. "C." arduini was reassigned to the new genus Megadontosuchus in the same paper that Kentisuchus was first described in. A 2007 review of European Eocene tomistomines synonymized K. toliapicus and K. champsoides with K. spenceri.
Phylogenetics
K. spenceri is closely related to Megadontosuchus and Dollosuchoides. An apparent close relationship between K. spenceri and Eosuchus lerichei has been used to imply that the latter species was a tomistomine, while it is now thought that Eosuchus is a basal gavialoid that is crownward to most other members of the superfamily.
Paleobiology
The close relation of Kentisuchus and Dollosuchoides, which are known from European localities that were on the mainland during the early Eocene, to Megadontosuchus, which is known from Italian localities that were once part of a Tethysian archipelago, suggests that it came to these islands after a tomistomine dispersal event south from mainland Europe rather than north from Africa.