Compsosuchus (meaning "pretty crocodile") is an extinct genus of abelisaurian dinosaur. It lived during the Late Cretaceous. It lived in India. Known only from a neck vertebrae, the species is often considered a normen dubium.
Discovery and naming[]
Compsosuchus was described in 1933 by von Huene and Matley. The type species is C. solus. The genus is often considered a nomen dubium.
Description[]
The type, and only specimen of C. solus, a few neck bones, was discovered in the Lameta Formation. It is based on an axis with an articulated axial intersection. There is one problem, the specimen appears to be lost. This axis resembles that of Allosaurus in the position of the upper pleurocoel, in having a cylindrical axial intersection (rather than tapered) in ventral view, an axial intersection less than twice the length of the axial intersection, and a broad neural canal. These apomorphies are shared with Allosaurus and might mean that Compsosuchus is not an Abelisaur but an Allosaur.
The holotype has morphology very similar to Masiakasaurus and is about twice as large. Like it, the pneumatic foramen are large, rounded and adjacent to the parapophysis. However, it differs through the atlantal intercentrum, which is slightly more upturned and (proportionally) less projected odontoid. Carrano et al. (2011) find that the Indian theropod fauna it is a part of seems to be taxonomically oversaturated.
Classification[]
Though often considered an abelisaurid, Compsosuchus is often thought to have been an abelisaurid dinosaur closely related to Carnotaurus and Indosaurus. However, Compsosuchus is now considered a nomen dubium in Noasauridae
JPInstitute.com Description[]
Compsosuchus was a small meat-eating dinosaur that lived in India. Since only a few of its neck bones have been uncovered, not much is known about it. The bones seem to indicate that it was a member of the dinosaur family that includes Allosaurus, but most scientists believe that the allosaur family had gone extinct by the time that Compsosuchuslived.
It is interesting to note that, if in fact Compsosuchus was an allosaur, its small size may indicate that this type of dinosaur had to find a different environmental niche in order to survive.