Gavialosuchus
Group Crocodylomorph
Date Late Oligocene to Early Pliocene
Size 5.4 m. long
Location North America, Europe
Gavialosuchus was an extinct gharial (crocodile-like retile) from the Late Oligocene to Early Pliocene of North America, and the Early Miocene of Europe. Like living gharials, it had a very long skull with a narrow snout that it used to catch fish. Gavialosuchus fossil have been found in coastal deposits, which suggests that it lived in estuaries or shallow seas, where it could have fed on a variety of different types of fish. Although living gharials are restricted to India and Southeast Asia, fossil of different Gavialosuchus species found in Florida, Austria, and Georgia suggest that the group was once distributed in swampy and coastal habitats all over the tropical regions of the world.