Kemkemia is a genus of probable crocodyliforms living in the Cretaceous, described from a single fossil that was recovered in 1999 from Morocco by an Italian team searching for fossil invertebrates. The fossil of Kemkemia dates from the Cenomanian age.
The describers, because of the general morphology of the vertebra, especially the strongly developed neural spine, originally considered it likely that K. auditorei was a theropoddinosaur belonging to the group Neoceratosauria. In view of the limited remains, they cautiously assigned it to a more general Neotheropodaincertae sedis. However, the authors later discovered it to be a typical crocodyliform, rather than an unusual theropod.[2] Meanwhile, spinosaurids and crocodyliforms share a number of morphological convergences, and the Kemkemia holotype shows a combination of features between "Sigilmassasaurus" and crocodyliforms. Therefore, it is not determinable whether K. auditorei is a crocodyliform or a spinosaurid.[3]
Kemkemia was a predator with a body length of about 4–5 m (13–16 ft) and, given that the vertebra is not very robust, possibly lightly built. The species length could be extrapolated because the specimen is that of an adult.
Paleoecology
The fossil is one of the few probable known crocodyliform caudal vertebrae. It comes from the Kem Kem Beds that have produced the fossils of very large predatory dinosaur genera: Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus and Deltadromeus.
^Cau, Andrea; Maganuco, Simone (2009). "A new theropod dinosaur, represented by a single unusual caudal vertebra from the Kem Kem Beds (Cretaceous) of Morocco". Atti Soc. It. Sci. Nat. Museo Civ. Stor. Nat. Milano. 150 (II): 239–257.
^Lio, G., Agnolin, F., Cau, A. and Maganuco, S. (2012). "Crocodyliform affinities for Kemkemia auditorei Cau and Maganuco, 2009, from the Late Cretaceous of Morocco." Atti della Società Italiana di Scienze Naturali e del Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano, 153 (I), s. 119–126.
