Subfamily of crocodiles
Crocodylinae is a subfamily of true crocodiles within the family Crocodylidae , and is the sister taxon to Osteolaeminae (dwarf crocodiles and slender-snouted crocodiles ).
Crocodylinae was cladistically defined by Christopher Brochu in 1999 as Crocodylus niloticus (the Nile crocodile ) and all crocodylians more closely related to it than to Osteolaemus tetraspis (the Dwarf crocodile ).[ 1] [ 2] This is a stem-based definition, and is the sister taxon to Osteolaeminae .
Crocodylinae contains the extant genus Crocodylus . It is disputed as to whether is also includes Mecistops (slender-snouted crocodiles),[ 2] [ 3] or the extinct genus Voay .[ 4]
Some morphological studies have recovered Mecistops as a basal member of Crocodylinae, more closely related to Crocodylus than to Osteolaemus and the other members of Osteolaeminae ,[ 2] [ 3] as shown in the cladogram below.[ 3]
Crocodylidae
Paleoafrican Crocodylus
Neotropical Crocodylus
Indo-Pacific Crocodylus
The below cladogram is based on a 2021 study using paleogenomics that extracted DNA from the extinct Voay , recovering it as a member of Crocodylinae.[ 4]
American crocodile at La Manzanilla, Jalisco, Mexico
A skull of the extinct Voay robustus
Crocodylinae contains 13-14 extant species and 6 extinct species.
Subfamily Crocodylinae
Genus Crocodylus
Crocodylus acutus , American crocodile
Crocodylus halli , Hall's New Guinea crocodile
Crocodylus intermedius , Orinoco crocodile
Crocodylus johnstoni , Freshwater crocodile , or Johnstone's crocodile
Crocodylus mindorensis , Philippine crocodile
Crocodylus moreletii , Morelet's crocodile or Mexican crocodile
Crocodylus niloticus , Nile crocodile
Crocodylus novaeguineae , New Guinea crocodile
Crocodylus palustris , mugger , marsh or Indian crocodile
Crocodylus porosus , Saltwater crocodile or Estuarine crocodile
Crocodylus raninus , Borneo crocodile , is currently considered to be a synonym of Crocodylus porosus ; whether or not it is a distinct species remains unclear.[ 5]
Crocodylus rhombifer , Cuban crocodile
Crocodylus siamensis , Siamese crocodile
Crocodylus suchus , West African crocodile , desert or sacred crocodile
Crocodylus anthropophagus †
Crocodylus checchiai †
Crocodylus falconensis †
Crocodylus palaeindicus †
Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni †
Genus Voay †
^ Brochu, C. A.; Storrs, G. W. (2012). "A giant crocodile from the Plio-Pleistocene of Kenya, the phylogenetic relationships of Neogene African crocodylines, and the antiquity of Crocodylus in Africa". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology . 32 (3): 587– 602. Bibcode :2012JVPal..32..587B . doi :10.1080/02724634.2012.652324 . S2CID 85103427 .
^ a b c Rio, Jonathan P.; Mannion, Philip D. (6 September 2021). "Phylogenetic analysis of a new morphological dataset elucidates the evolutionary history of Crocodylia and resolves the long-standing gharial problem" . PeerJ . 9 : e12094. doi :10.7717/peerj.12094 . PMC 8428266 . PMID 34567843 .
^ a b c Azarra, Beatrice; Boschian, Giovanni; Brochu, Christopher; Delfino, Massimo; Iurino, Dawid Adam; Kimambo, Jackson Stanley; Manzi, Giorgio; Masao, Fidelis T.; Menconero, Sofia; Njau, Jackson K; Cherin, Marco (2021). "A new cranium of Crocodylus anthropophagus from Olduvai Gorge, northern Tanzania" . Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia (Research in Paleontology and Stratigraphy) . 127 (2): 275– 295. doi :10.13130/2039-4942/15771 .
^ a b Hekkala, E.; Gatesy, J.; Narechania, A.; Meredith, R.; Russello, M.; Aardema, M. L.; Jensen, E.; Montanari, S.; Brochu, C.; Norell, M.; Amato, G. (2021-04-27). "Paleogenomics illuminates the evolutionary history of the extinct Holocene "horned" crocodile of Madagascar, Voay robustus" . Communications Biology . 4 (1): 505. doi :10.1038/s42003-021-02017-0 . ISSN 2399-3642 . PMC 8079395 . PMID 33907305 .
^ "Species | the Reptile Database" .