Data from: Osteology of Crocodylus palaeindicus from the late Miocene–Pleistocene of South Asia and the phylogenetic relationships of crocodyloids

Fossil crocodylian remains have been documented from India and other parts
of South Asia since the mid-19th century, but specimens attributed to
several extinct and extant species of Crocodylus have largely been
neglected in modern taxonomic treatments. Here, we present a detailed
anatomical description of the extinct species Crocodylus palaeindicus,
which we restrict to the Late Miocene to early Middle Pleistocene of
India. Using an autapomorphy-based approach to species-level
identification, we regard Crocodylus sivalensis as a junior synonym of C.
palaeindicus, and provide taxonomic reidentifications of all specimens
previously referred to these two species. We present a new diagnosis for
C. palaeindicus that facilitates its distinction from the extant mugger
crocodile, C. palustris, which does not unequivocally appear in the fossil
record prior to the Pleistocene. The lack of clear spatiotemporal overlap,
coupled with the otherwise lengthy ghost lineage implied by their sister
taxon relationship in our phylogenetic analyses, provides tentative
support that the extant species is either the descendant of C.
palaeindicus, or originated via budding cladogenesis. An expanded
phylogenetic analysis recovers the Late Miocene African C. checchiai and
Pliocene South American C. falconensis as species within the Neotropical
Crocodylus clade, supporting an African origin for this radiation. We also
recover Kinyang, from the early–middle Miocene of Kenya, as a crocodyline,
rather than an osteolaemine as originally described, and it is potentially
the stratigraphically earliest known member of the Crocodylus lineage.
Other notable results from our phylogenetic analyses suggest that
crocodyloids might not have been present in North America prior to the
late Neogene arrival of Crocodylus, with Albertosuchus knudsenii,
Prodiplocynodon langi, and ‘Crocodylus’ affinis all recovered outside of
Crocodyloidea. Furthermore, we demonstrate that an alligatoroid placement
for the recently erected latest Cretaceous–Paleogene East Asian clade
Orientalosuchina is highly labile, with relationships at the ‘base’ of
Crocodylia unstable.