Ceratosuchops

Ceratosuchops (meaning "horned crocodile face") is a genus of spinosaurid from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian) Wessex Formation of Britain. The type species is C. inferodios, known from skull fragments (a snout tip and a partial braincase) recovered between 2013–2017 from Chilton Chine on the Isle of Wight, and housed at the Dinosaur Isle Museum in Sandown. It was named in 2021 by a team consisting of Chris Tijani Barker, Darren Naish, David W. E. Hone, and colleagues, alongside Riparovenator milnerae.

Ceratosuchops is notably distinguished from its close relatives by the presence of a bony lump, known as a boss, which extends from each postorbital bone, hence its genus name. These bosses may have served a function in signalling, or, like similar structures in other species, might have been involved in combat behaviours. The size of C. inferodios is difficult to deduce, given the fragmentary nature of its remains, though it may have been similar to that of Baryonyx. Analysis of the braincase and neuroanatomy of C. inferodios suggests that it was very similar to other basal tetanurans, and that baryonychines likely underwent few changes to their brain anatomy as a result of their shift from terrestrial to aquatic prey.

Ceratosuchops forms part of the tribe Ceratosuchopsini, alongside Riparovenator and the later, north African Suchomimus, and to the exclusion of the other Wessex baryonychine (Baryonyx). The presence of up to three ecologically similar taxa (Baryonyx, Ceratosuchops, and Riparovenator) in the same environment led C. inferodios' describers to suggest that, at minimum, it and Riparovenator were likely ecologically distinct in some way. However, it was tentatively suggested in 2022 by Paul Sereno and colleagues that C. inferodios and Riparovenator may have been the same taxon, and that the differences between the two were the result of individual variation; accordingly, when conducting a phylogenetic analysis of Spinosauridae, the name C. inferodios was used for both.