Goniopholididae

Goniopholididae and Susisuchus

The phylogenetic relationships of Goniopholididae in the CW3 analysis places a clade consisting of Vectisuchus and the two species of Sunosuchus as the sister-group to Goniopholididae + the remaining neosuchians ( Fig. 6). Previously, these two genera have been identified either as two of the most shallowly nested goniopholidids ( De Andrade et al., 2011; also found in the constrained version of analysis CW3) or a more deeply nested goniopholidid in the case of Sunosuchus ( Martin et al., 2016b; although its placement was not discussed in the latter paper).

One novel aspect of our results is the identification of Susisuchus anatoceps as the sister-taxon of Goniopholididae in both our CW3 and RW3 analyses. Susisuchus has previously been placed outside Neosuchia ( Jouve, 2009) or as part of Susisuchidae at the base of Neosuchia (Fortier & Schultz, 2009; Turner & Pritchard, 2015). The two synapomorphies supporting the association of Susisuchus and Goniopholididae in our trees are: dorsal process of premaxillae extending beyond third maxillary alveolus (character 108) and caudal vertebrae with amphicoelous centra from second vertebra onward (character 503).