Itasuchidae


Itasuchidae is a Gondwanan family of mesoeucrocodylians that lived during the Cretaceous period. It was a clade of terrestrial crocodyliforms that evolved a rather dog-like form, and were terrestrial carnivores.

Phylogeny

The phylogenetic analysis of Carvalho et al. found a sister relationship between Malawisuchus and Itasuchus. They named this node family Itasuchidae, and found it to be a member of Peirosauroidea. However, their analysis didn't include any neosuchians or trematochampsids. Later studies placed Itasuchus as a trematochampsid. In their 2018 paper renaming "Goniopholis" paulistanus as Roxochampsa, Pinheiro et al. redefined Itasuchidae so that only ziphosuchians closely related to Itasuchus would be included in the family, like Roxochampsa, based on cladistic analysis.