Borealosuchus Fossil Scute Crocodile Prehistoric Carnivorous Reptile Cretaceous Collection (2)

Dermal Scute Armor Fossil Prehistoric Crocodile mm 21 x 15 x 3 Borealosuchus sternbergi Loricate Extinct Reptiles Mesozoic Cretaceous Collecting Paleontology Museum.

Pleasant collectible fossil specimen, difficult to find, in excellent condition, high quality Osteoderm perfectly preserved with notable surface details, has a surface texture with the grooves of blood capillarization still evident.
No restoration at all. Only a piece, as in photos.

Borealosuchus, whose name means "Northern Crocodile", is an extinct genus of Crocodile, lived between the Upper Cretaceous and the Eocene (70 - 50 million years ago). Its genus survived on long after the extinction that ended the age of Dinosaurs. His remains have been found in numerous fossiliferous locations in North America.
It was a medium-sized crocodile that reached up to 2.8 meters in length with a skull of 36 centimeters. This animal was quite similar to today's crocodile, but some characteristics, particularly of the skull, indicate that Borealosuchus looked halfway between an alligator and a real crocodile. The snout was relatively long and narrow, but nevertheless it was rather robust.
The genus Borealosuchus was established in 1997, including six currently recognized species. In order of denomination, are B. sternbergii, B. acutidentatus, B. wilsoni, B. formidabilis, B. griffithi and B. threeensis. Four of these species (B. sternbergi, B. acutidentatus, B. wilsoni and B. formidabilis) were originally called Leidosuchus species. A sixth species of Borealosuchus, B. threeensis, was named in 2012. Fossils of this species were found in the Inversand Company Marl Pit of Gloucester County, New Jersey
The species is Borealosuchus sternbergi, found in layers of the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) in Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. B. acutidentatus, however, lived in the Paleocene in Saskatchewan, while B. griffithi comes from the Paleocene of Alberta and B. wilsoni from the Eocene of Wyoming. The best-known species is B. formidabilis, whose numerous remains were found in North Dakota in layers of the Paleocene, at the Wannagan Creek site. Borealosuchus is considered a primitive representative of the Crocodylia, ancestral to both true crocodiles and alligators, and perhaps even more basal than forms like Boverisuchus. The species Borealosuchus formidabilis lived in a warm and humid environment, consisting of tropical lagoons and marshes. The weather had to be similar to that of current Florida. Borealosuchus was to be an excellent hunter of fish and other aquatic vertebrates.
According to Brochu et al. (2012) most of the phylogenetic analyzes have recovered Borealosuchus as a crocodile more closely related to the clade Brevirostres than to Gavialoidea, some have recovered as more closely related to gavialoids or as a basal Eusuchian not belonging to the Crocodylia. According to Brochu's own analysis and co-authors, all three hypotheses are equally parsimonious.