DOI: 10.5061/dryad.83bk3j9z8
title: Data from: Osteology of Crocodylus palaeindicus from the late Miocene–Pleistocene of South Asia and the phylogenetic relationships of crocodyloids

description: 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.
description: The morphological data matrix was built based on the literature
 and personal observations. These data were then analysed under the TNT (v.
 1.6) software for phylogenetic inferences with several methods of
 inference.
description: # Osteology of Crocodylus palaeindicus from the late Miocene–Pleistocene
 of South Asia and the phylogenetic relationships of crocodyloids
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.83bk3j9z8](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.83bk3j9z8) ## Description of the data and file structure The data are separated into 4 files : \- nexus_matrix.nex, which is the morphological data matrix used in the analyses. \- tnt_matrix.tnt which is the same matrix but in a format suitable for running the analyses under the TNT software. \- tree_analysis_1.nex which is the output tree of analysis 1. \- tree_analysis_2.nex which is the output tree of analysis 2. April Version changes: Update of the nexus file so that it is compatible with Mesquite Software.