Paleontologists have actually explained a brand-new genus and types of teleosaurid thalattosuchian based upon 2 specimens discovered in eastern Morocco. The ancient predator had a mouth lined with thin, needle-like teeth, a dentition the scientists state differs from that of any other recognized crocodile-line animal.
An artist’s restoration of Ctenosuchus tenuidens in a freshwater setting; the animal is illustrated with a lengthen rostrum and thick needle-like dentition, showing the anatomy explained from the fossil specimens and a likely feeding technique concentrated on little marine victim. Image credit: Nathan Dehaut.
Ctenosuchus tenuidens resided in what is now Morocco throughout the Middle Jurassic, about 165 million years earlier.
The animal was a kind of thalattosuchian, a group of primarily marine crocodylomorphs from the Early Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous.
“Crocodylomorph archosaurs were extremely varied throughout the Mesozoic populating terrestrial, fluvial, lacustrine, and totally marine environments,” stated University of Portsmouth paleontologist Hamzah Imran and associates.
“One group in specific, Thalattosuchia, were exceptional for their morphological adjustments to a semi-fully marine way of life, with some obtained Late Jurassic kinds looking like marine reptiles in general body strategy.”
“Thalattosuchia consists of some widely known kinds, significant for their long, slim rostra and ‘gharial-like’ bauplan.”
“Their geographical variety extends around the world in between latitudes 57.4 degrees north and minus 39.8 degrees south, however they are best recorded from northwest Europe, consisting of Germany, the United Kingdom, and France.”
2 partial specimens of Ctenosuchus tenuidens originated from red mudstone deposits of the Talsint-Anoual location in Figuig province, Morocco.
“The brand-new product was bought from business fossil collectors based in Morocco,” the scientists stated.
“The collector provided us with a variety of photos of the website and supplied area information.”
“This location, near the town of Talsint covers a massive stretch of Mesozoic layers of Early Jurassic to Late Cretaceous age controlled by marine limestones and shales of Early Jurassic age overlain by red beds of Middle and Late Jurassic age.”
Ctenosuchus tenuidensteeth differ from those of any other crocodile relative, living or extinct.
Each tooth has to do with 10 times taller than it is large, which the teeth are spaced approximately 2.3 mm apart.
The researchers approximate more than 35 teeth on each side of the upper jaw.
By contrast, the living Indian gharial, a fish-eater with a notoriously slim snout, has upper-jaw teeth spaced about 15 mm apart.
According to the authors, Ctenosuchus tenuidens most likely consumed little, soft victim such as little fish, shellfishes and soft-bodied invertebrates.
They thought about whether it filtered food from the water, as some Jurassic flying reptiles might have, however call that a tentative concept.
An evolutionary analysis showed that Ctenosuchus tenuidens belongs to Teleosauridaea sis types to Seldsienean megistorhynchus and the group Aeolodontini.
“This types represents the only freshwater teleosauroid from Gondwana and the 2nd teleosaur types– the other is Machimosaurus sp.– in the Jurassic of Morocco,” the paleontologists stated.
The discovery is reported in a paper in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
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Hamzah Imran et alA brand-new teleosauroid (Crocodylomorpha, Thalattosuchia) with a distinct dentition from the Middle Jurassic of eastern Morocco. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontologyreleased online October 8, 2026; doi: 10.1080/ 02724634.2026.2728670
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