Hyrotrioskjan on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/hyrotrioskjan/art/Knoetschkesuchus-663929295Hyrotrioskjan

Deviation Actions

Hyrotrioskjan's avatar

Knoetschkesuchus

Published:
14.3K Views

Description

As a big fan of atoposaurids I was pretty pumped when Oliver Wings asked me to reconstruct the newest genus of this family. Knoetschkesuchus (oe=ö), named after Nils Knötschke, chief scientist of the Dinopark Münchehagen, is a wonderful little creature small enough to be a suitable pet. Like other atoposaurids, Knoetschkesuchus was most likely a terrestrial predator, or maybe a omnivore, judging from it's heterodont dentition. 
The teeth at the tip of the snout are pointy and typical crocodilian while the teeth further back look more like those of durophagous predators like the mosasaur Globidens, hard shelled prey like this Eryma sp. (shown here) or snails which are also known from its fossil site.

The tiny crocodylomorph was found in the Langenberg quarry, a site know for Europasaurus holgeri, a small macronarian sauropod, the oldest known German mammals, turtles, pterosaurs, fish, ammonites, snails, crustaceans and other crocodylomorphs like Machimosaurus. The site seems to preserve a late Jurassic island ecosystem and is a small brother of Morrison, Tendaguru and Lourinhã.

Interestingly Knoetschkesuchus has already two species. K. langenbergensis is known from Germany, while K. guimarotae, 
from the Guimarota coalmine in Portugal, was first classified as a new species of Theriosuchus but the material is now assigned to Knoetschkesuchus. 

I hope for much more material from this animal and the Langenberg fauna in general.

Here the paper for more:

Knoetschkesuchus langenbergensis gen. nov. sp. nov., a new atoposaurid crocodyliform from the Upper Jurassic Langenberg Quarry (Lower Saxony, northwestern Germany), and its relationships to Theriosuchus

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti…


P.s. those who watch my Speedsketching videos can already guess what we will look at next.

P.p.s. This isn't the only picture I did for the publication, another one will follow during the next days.
 
Image size
5866x4340px 2.63 MB
© 2017 - 2024 Hyrotrioskjan
Comments30
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Crazyartlover21's avatar