Herein, we report a small collection of isolated crocodilian teeth recovered from
shallow marine Eocene deposits of Turnu Rosu (Porcesti), Romania. The teeth probably
represent an attritional assemblage that could have belonged to several individuals
of various sizes and ages, provided with heterodont dentition of at least five morphotypes
(slender caniniform, triangular-lanceolate shaped, enlarged conical, slender conical,
and low crowned). We assigned the isolated teeth to Gavialoidea based on a number
of morphological characters shared with representatives of early gavialoids, known
from the early-middle Eocene of western Europe or North Africa. The gavialoids from
Turnu Rosu represent a new group for the Paleogene of Romania that probably reached
the territory of southern Transylvania in the Middle Eocene. Possible scenarios for
the origin of southern Transylvanian gavialoids imagine an existence of a western-eastern
European route or a migration route direct from North Africa and an ancestor close
to the morphology of Maroccosuchus from the region of western Tethys.
