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Information about Dakosaurus Andiniensis

Dakosaurus andiniensis
Fossil range: Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous
Enlarge picture
Skull and reconstruction of Dakosaurus from National Geographic

Skull and reconstruction of Dakosaurus from National Geographic
Conservation status
Extinct (fossil)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Sauropsida
(unranked)Mesoeucrocodylia
Suborder:Thalattosuchia
Family:Metriorhynchidae
Genus:Dakosaurus
Species:D. andiniensis
Binomial name
Dakosaurus andiniensis
(Gasparini et al., 2006)
Nicknamed Godzilla because of its short skull, Dakosaurus andiniensis was a prehistoric crocodyliform from the End Jurassic to Earliest Cretaceous of South America. The earliest fossils were discovered in 1987 in the Neuquén Basin, a very rich fossil bed in Argentina. Careful study more recently discovered cranial material has indicated that D. andiniensis is unique among the metriorhynchids (the most specialised family of crocodyliforms to marine life).

Metriorhynchids were quite common in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods; they were small to large in size, pelagic hunters that ate mostly fish and belemnites. Most metriorhynchids, such as Geosaurus, had long, narrow snouts and jaws, which is indicative of predating upon fish and/or cephalopods. Dakosaurus andiniensis on the other hand had large, wide (> 40cm) and relatively short skull; with large, recurved and serrated teeth (more typical of dinosaurs and fossil terrestrial crocodyliforms than marine crocodyliforms). This indicates that D. andiniensis was a high-order predator. It probably predated upon other sea reptiles, including the fish-like ichthyosaurs and long necked plesiosaurs, other crocodiles and sharks. During the Jurassic period sharks were not very big, so D. andiniensis only had the gigantic species of pliosaurs as possible predators. From the 80cm long skull an estimate of just under six metres for its total length is recorded, however as crocodilians grow their entire life, there could be even larger specimens.

Dakosaurus is not an exclusive South American genus, as fossils have been found across Western Europe, but the Neuquén specimens represents a clearly distinct species.

Geological ages

Dakosaurus andiniensis is known from the Late Tithonian of the Late Jurassic and the Earliest Berriasian of the Early Cretaceous.

References

  • Gasparini, Z., Pol, D. & Spalletti, L.A. (2006). An unusual marine crocodyliform from the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary of Patagonia. Science 311: 70-73

External links

Late Jurassic (or Malm) Epoch of the Jurassic Period is the unit of geologic time from 161.2 ± 4.0 to 145.5 ± 4.0 million years ago, which is preserved in Upper Jurassic strata.
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The Early Cretaceous (timestratigraphic name) or the Lower Cretaceous (logstratigraphic name), is the earlier of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous Period. It began about 146 million years ago.
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National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the world's largest not-for-profit educational and scientific organizations. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and
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conservation status of a species is an indicator of the likelihood of that species continuing to survive either in the present day or the future. Many factors are taken into account when assessing the conservation status of a species: not simply the number remaining, but the
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For other uses of the term, see Fossil (disambiguation)


FOSSIL is a standard for allowing serial communication for telecommunications programs under the DOS operating system.
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Scientific classification or biological classification is a method by which biologists group and categorize species of organisms. Scientific classification also can be called scientific taxonomy, but should be distinguished from folk taxonomy, which lacks scientific basis.
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Chordata
Bateson, 1885

Typical Classes

See below

Chordates (phylum Chordata) are a group of animals that includes the vertebrates, together with several closely related invertebrates.
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Sauropsida*
Goodrich, 1916

Subclasses
  • Anapsida
  • Diapsida
Synonyms
  • Reptilia Laurenti, 1768
Reptiles are tetrapods and amniotes, animals whose embryos are surrounded by an amniotic membrane, and members of the class
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Mesoeucrocodylia
Whetstone and Whybrow, 1983

Mesoeucrocodylia is the name of the clade that has replaced the paraphyletic group Mesosuchia.

It was long known that Mesosuchia was an evolutionary grade (Whetstone and Whybrow, 1983), a hypothesis confirmed by
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Thalattosuchia
Fraas, 1901

Thalattosuchia is the name given to a clade of marine crocodylomorphs from the Early Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous that had a cosmopolitan distribution.
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Metriorhynchidae
Fitzinger, 1843

Metriorhynchids were a group of aquatic crocodilians that lived in seas of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
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Dakosaurus
Quenstedt, 1856

Species
  • D. maximus (type)
  • D. andiniensis
  • D. lapparenti


Dakosaurus
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binomial nomenclature is the formal system of naming species. The system is also called binominal nomenclature (particularly in zoological circles), binary nomenclature (particularly in botanical circles), or the binomial classification system.
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20th century - 21st century - 22nd century
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2006 by topic:
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Shōwa series
Haruo Nakajima
Katsumi Tezuka
Shinji Takagi
Isao Zushi
Toru Kawai
Heisei series
Kenpachiro Satsuma
Millennium series
Tsutomu Kitagawa
Mizuho Yoshida Godzilla
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Crocodylidae
Cuvier, 1807

Genera
  • Mecistops
  • Crocodylus
  • Osteolaemus
See full taxonomy.
A crocodile is any species belonging to the family Crocodylidae
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The Jurassic Period is a major unit of the geologic timescale that extends from about 199.6 ± 0.6 Ma (million years ago) to 145.4 ± 4.0 Ma, the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous.
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The Cretaceous Period is one of the major divisions of the geologic timescale, reaching from the end of the Jurassic Period (i.e. from 145.5 ± 4.0 million years ago (Ma)) to the beginning of the Paleocene epoch of the Tertiary Period (about 65.5 ± 0.3 Ma).
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South America is a continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean; North America and the Caribbean Sea lie
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For other uses of the term, see Fossil (disambiguation)


FOSSIL is a standard for allowing serial communication for telecommunications programs under the DOS operating system.
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Neuquén is the capital city of the Argentine province of Neuquén, located in the east of the province, at the confluence of the Limay and Neuquén rivers. The city has a population of more than 265,000, making it the largest city in Patagonia.
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Motto
En unión y libertad   (Spanish)
"In Union and Freedom"
Anthem
Himno Nacional Argentino
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The pelagic zone is the part of the open sea or ocean that is not near the coast. In contrast, the neritic zone comprises the water that is near to (and is significantly affected by) the coast or the continental shelf.
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Belemnoidea

Extinct Orders

Aulacocerida
Phragmoteuthida
Belemnitida
Diplobelida
Belemnoteuthina

Belemnites (or belemnoids) are an extinct group of marine cephalopod, very similar in many ways to the modern squid and closely related to the
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Geosaurus
Cuvier, 1824

Species
  • G. giganteus (type)
  • G. gracilis
  • G. suevicus
  • G. vignaudi
  • G. araucanensis
  • G.

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Cephalopoda
Cuvier, 1797

Orders

Subclass Nautiloidea
  • †Plectronocerida
  • †Ellesmerocerida
  • †Actinocerida
  • †Pseudorthocerida
  • †Endocerida
  • †Tarphycerida
  • †Oncocerida

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Ichthyosauria
Blainville, 1835

Families
  • Ichthyosauridae
  • Leptonectidae
  • Mixosauridae
  • Ophthalmosauridae
  • Shastasauridae
  • Stenopterygiidae
  • Teretocnemidae
Ichthyosaurs (Greek for 'fish lizard' -
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Plesiosauroidea
Gray, 1825

Families

Cimoliasauridae
Cryptoclididae
Elasmosauridae
Plesiosauridae
Polycotylidae

Plesiosaurs (IPA /ˈplisɪəˌsɔɹ/
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SHARK

General
Vincent Rijmen, Joan Daemen, Bart Preneel, Antoon Bosselaers, Erik De Win
1996

KHAZAD, Rijndael

Cipher detail
Key size(s):| 128 bits

Block size(s):| 64 bits
Substitution-permutation network
6

In cryptography,
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