Lungfish for Dinner

Typically I can say one or two things from my personal experiences with any given fossil animal that appears here. This week I can, hopefully, offer up more than that because I have handled the 3D model and described the animal to a lot of people during outreach events and traveling museum showcases. The animal of the week is a lesser known crocodyliform with a flat head named Aegisuchus witmeri. Known from a partial braincase and the skull roof, the croc was being stored in the Royal Ontario Museum until was noticed by Casey Holliday who, working with Nicholas Gardner, described and named the animal. The chief restorative illustration of the animal was created by Dr. Holliday's then PhD student, Henry P. Tsai (who has graduated and gone on to a position at Brown). The morphology that is known about this croc is very interesting and will be discussed in length during this week.

Illustration by Henry P. Tsai for Holliday and Gardner, 2012