Anteophthalmosuchus

The holotype specimen of Anteophthalmosuchus, from the Wealden Group of the Isle of Wight, includes a well-preserved skull and partial skeleton. This specimen has been known since 1904 and was identified as the "Tie Pits specimen" or the "Hooley specimen" after Reginald Walter Hooley, an amateur paleontologist who had described it in 1905. Hooley had originally attributed the specimen to the previously named species Goniopholis crassidens. Additional referred specimens include a partial disarticulated skeleton and a partial skull that may represent a juvenile specimen. Features that distinguish A. hooleyi from Goniopholis crassidens include the lack of a hole in the lower jaw called the mandibular fenestra, very wide supratemporal fenestrae (openings) on the skull table, and a bone above the eye socket called the palpebral that is small and does not extend over the socket as in some other goniopholidids. A second species, Anteophthalmosuchus escuchae, was first described and named by A.D. Buscalioni, L. Alcalá, E. Espílez and L. Mampel in 2013. It is known solely from the holotype AR-1-1097 which consists of a partial skull. It was collected from the early Albian-aged Escucha Formation, at Santa Maria Mine located in the municipality of Ariño, Teruel Province, of Aragon, along with the closely related Hulkepholis plotos. ==Description==

Estimated at in length, Anteophthalmosuchus would have been the largest crocodyliform in the Wealden faunal assemblage, larger than the contemporaneous species Hylaeochampsa vectiana, Leiokarinosuchus brookensis, and Vectisuchus leptognathus. Skull Anteophthalmosuchus' skull, when complete, would have measured around in length. The majority of the skull, including the maxillary portion of the snout and most of the infratemporal (posterior, or rearward, but on the outside) part of the skull, was covered in regularly spaced, circular pits, as in Goniopholis. The palpebral bone was very small and did not project laterally (outwards) over the orbit (eye socket), unlike in other goniopholidids. The supratemporal fenestra was subcircular, and at its widest was almost twice the diameter of the orbits. The occipital condyle was roughly ten percent of the maximum width of the dorsal (top) portion of the skull. Unlike Goniopholis crassidens, but like G. baryglyphaeus (and another specimen, IRSNB R1537), A. hooleyi lacked an external mandibular fenestra (the opening situated posteriorly, or towards the back of, the mandible). ==Phylogeny==

alongside the skull of a modern crocodilian Anteophthalmosuchus hooleyi was included in a phylogenetic analysis of goniopholidids that was published soon before the specimen was redescribed. The Hooley and Dollo specimens were found to be the closest relatives of a specimen called "Hulke's goniopholidid", now named Hulkepholis willetti. Below is a cladogram from that analysis: }} ==References==