Basal crocodyliforms from the Lower Cretaceous Tugulu Group (Xinjiang, China), and the phylogenetic position of Edentosuchus

We report here two crocodyliform specimens from Lower Cretaceous beds of the Tugulu Group (Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China). One of them consists of postcranial material, while the other is a nicely preserved skull. The latter is assigned to Edentosuchus tienshanensis, a previously poorly know taxon from the Tugulu Group. The new specimen adds novel information on this unusual crocodyliform and allows us to test previously proposed phylogenetic relationships of Edentosuchus tienshanensis through a parsimony analysis within the context of Crocodyliformes. Edentosuchus is found to be a member of Protosuchidae, the most basal clade of crocodyliforms, thus extending the stratigraphic record of this clade from the Early Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd.