A ziphodont crocodile from the late Pleistocene King Creek catchment, Darling Downs, Queensland

A well preserved reptilian tooth recovered from late Pleistocene fluviatile sediments along King Creek on the Darling Downs, south eastern Queensland, displays a suite of characters including lateral compression and curvature, lenticular cross section, length/ width ratio >1.3, slight anterior/posterior recurve and distinct, strongly serrate carinae, that enable it to be attributed to a ziphodont crocodile (Quinkana sp.). It is the first record of a ziphodont in the King Creek ecosystem and only the second for the eastern Darling Downs in over 150 years of fossil collecting. This tooth as well as previously documented fossils from Tea Tree Cave (N. Qld) and Texas Caves (S. Qld) provides the youngest records of ziphodont crocodiles globally. Ziphodont, Crocodile, Quinkana, King Creek, Darling Downs, Pleistocene. A high diversity of large bodied reptilian ca­ rnivores, including varanids and crocodilians, inhabited the late Pleistocene ecosystems of south eastern Queensland. Within the fossil collections of the Queensland Museum, the giant varanid Varanus priscus (formerly Megalania prisca) is the most abundant having been recorded in deposits from several sub­catch ments throughout the Darling Downs, but being best known from the intensively studied King Creek catchment (Molnar & Kurz 1997; Price & Sobbe 2005; Price & Webb 2006). Crocodiles, principally Pallimnarchus pollens and Crocodylus porosus, have also been recorded from a range of Darling Downs localities (Molnar & Kurz 1997; Price & Webb 2006). In their review of eastern Darling Downs Pleistocene vertebrates in the collection of the Queensland Museum, Molnar & Kurz (1997) concluded that ziphodont crocodiles seem to have been absent from the region during the Pleistocene, although an earlier paper (Molnar 1981) listed a single ziphodont tooth crown from either Westbrook Creek or Gowrie Creek, northwest of Toowoomba in the collection of the Australian Museum (AMF2876). A newly collected fossil is the first record of a ziphodont crocodile in the King Creek catchment. The purpose of this paper is to report the palaeo­ ntological significance of this specimen. MATERIALS AND METHODS The specimen as collected was robust and did not require special preparation or preservation techniques. All measurements are in metric