Melanosuchus, Gray, 1862

Souza-Filho, Jonas Pereira De, Guilherme, Edson, Toledo, Peter Mann De, Carvalho, Ismar De Souza, Negri, Francisco Ricardo, Maciente, Andréa Aparecida Da Rocha, Cidade, Giovanne M., Lacerda, Mauro Bruno Da Silva & Souza, Lucy Gomes De, 2020, On a new Melanosuchus species (Alligatoroidea: Caimaninae) from Solimões Formation (Eocene-Pliocene), Northern Brazil, and evolution of Caimaninae, Zootaxa 4894 (4), pp. 561-593 : 563

Melanosuchus and its prolific debates

Melanosuchus was originally proposed by Gray (1862) as a monospecific genus to relocate the species Caiman niger described by Spix (1825). For a synonym list of Melanosuchus niger see Medem (1963). Regarding the phylogenetic relationships of the genus there are two main propositions: 1) nested within Caiman genus, frequently as sister of C. latirostris (e.g., Poe 1996; Brochu 1997, 1999; Souza-Filho et al. 2019); or, 2) as sister species of Caiman genus (e.g., Oaks 2011; Roberto et al. 2020). The validity of the Melanosuchus is still an open debate with some authors suggesting its synonymization with Caiman ( Poe 1996) , this discussion, for now, goes beyond the scope of the present contribution. However, we suggest that the propositions made by Fitzhugh (2016) for molecular inferences should be considered in future works addressing this question.