The skull of the Upper Cretaceous baurusuchid crocodile Baurusuchus albertoi Nascimento & Zaher 2010, and its phylogenetic affinities

We here describe the cranial remains of Baurusuchus albertoi Nascimento & Zaher, 2010, a Baurusuchidae from the Upper Cretaceous of Brazil that is known from a partially complete and articulated skeleton. The cranial anatomy provided important new information that allowed a more accurate analysis of its phylogenetic affinities. Phylogenetic results suggest that B. albertoi is the sister-group of a clade formed by Baurusuchus pachecoi and Baurusuchus salgadoensis. Characters that place B. albertoi within the family Baurusuchidae are: antorbital portion of the jugal more than two times higher than the infratemporal part; rod-shaped infratemporal bar of the jugal; dorsal process of the quadratojugal extensively contacting the postorbital; posterolateral process of squamosal totally deflected ventrally; cervical neural spines anteroposteriorly large; spool-shaped vertebral centra; cranial table as wide as ventral portion. Baurusuchus albertoi differs from the remaining two species of the genus by having a more excavated triangular depression of the jugal suborbital portion, an area that is also more ventrally developed; a vertical and lateromedially thin retroarticular process; and descending expansion of the lateral edge of the squamosal anteriorly concave. (C) 2011 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2011, 163, S116-S131. doi: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00708.x