Central African slender-snouted crocodile
| Central African slender-snouted crocodile | |
|---|---|
| Individual on a snake farm in Tanzania | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Archosauromorpha |
| Clade: | Archosauriformes |
| Order: | Crocodilia |
| Family: | Crocodylidae |
| Genus: | Mecistops |
| Species: | M. leptorhynchus |
| Binomial name | |
| Mecistops leptorhynchus (Bennett, 1835) | |
| Synonyms | |
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The Central African slender-snouted crocodile (Mecistops leptorhynchus) is one of two species of crocodiles in the genus Mecistops. It was once thought to be a population of the West African slender-snouted crocodile (Mecistops cataphractus) but was elevated to a species after two detailed studies, one in 2014 and the other in 2018.
The species was described in 1835 on the basis of a specimen that had died at the London Zoo and had been claimed to have been collected in the Fernando Po. Studies of specimens and their molecular sequences established that there were two different species which occurred in distinct hydrological zones. M. leptorhynchus is easily differentiated morphologically from M. cataphractus by the absence of a round tubercle or boss on the squamosal scale at the back of the head in the former and present in the latter.