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Pristichampsidae

Pristichampsidae is an extinct family of crocodilians that lived in Europe, Asia, and North America during the Paleogene. Two genera of pristichampsids are currently recognized, Pristichampsus and Planocrania. Pristichampsids were highly specialized crocodilians that were adapted to living on land. They have extensive body armor, long legs, and blunt claws resembling hooves, and are sometimes informally called "hoofed crocodiles". Most phylogenetic analyses (analyses of evolutionary relationships) place pristichampsids in a basal position within Crocodylia. Some of these analyses find that pristichampsids lie just outside Brevirostres, the group of crocodilians that includes alligators, caimans, and crocodiles but not gharials. Pristichampsids are inferred to have first appeared in the Late Cretaceous, several tens of millions of years before they actually occur in the fossil record. This is because the earliest members of Brevirostres appear in the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous, and Pristichampsidae, being an outgroup to Brevirostres, must have branched off before this time.