Bottosaurus is an extinct genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of crocodile

Crocodile

A crocodile is any species belonging to the family Crocodylidae . The term can also be used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia: i.e...

. Specimens have been found from New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, North

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 and South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

, and Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

. It had distinctively thick osteoderm

Osteoderm

Osteoderms are bony deposits forming scales, plates or other structures in the dermal layers of the skin. Osteoderms are found in many groups of extant and extinct reptiles, including lizards, various groups of dinosaurs , crocodilians, phytosaurs, aetosaurs, placodonts, and hupehsuchians...

s that lacked the pitting of most other crocodylians. The unusual blunt, conical tribodontid crushing teeth are the most common diagnostic material to fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

ize and be recovered, although teeth from the posterior portion of the jaw tend to be more laterally compressed like those of other related crocodiles. The teeth had a "wrinkled" enamel

Tooth enamel

Tooth enamel, along with dentin, cementum, and dental pulp is one of the four major tissues that make up the tooth in vertebrates. It is the hardest and most highly mineralized substance in the human body. Tooth enamel is also found in the dermal denticles of sharks...

 surface and prominent annual rings with vertical ridges running down them. A short, massive lower jaw that is nearly circular in cross-section is evident from remains of the type species

Type species

In biological nomenclature, a type species is both a concept and a practical system which is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals and plants. The value of a "type species" lies in the fact that it makes clear what is meant by a particular genus name. A type species is the species...

 B. harlani.

The genus is predominantly found from Late Cretaceous

Late Cretaceous

The Late Cretaceous is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous period is divided in the geologic timescale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous series...

 strata of Maastrichtian age, such as the Hornerstown Formation

Hornerstown Formation

The Hornerstown Formation is a Paleogene or latest Mesozoic geologic formation. The age of these deposits have been controversial. While most fossils are of animals types known from the earliest Cenozoic era, several fossils of otherwise exclusively Cretaceous age have been found...

, New Jersey Greensands, and Laramie Formation

Laramie Formation

The Laramie Formation is a geologic formation of Cretaceous age, named by Clarence King in 1876 for exposures in northeastern Colorado, in the United States....

. New material has been found from the Rhems and Williamsburg Formations of the Black Mingo Group of the South Carolina costal plain that dates back to the Danian

Danian

The Danian is the oldest age or lowermost stage of the Paleocene epoch or series, the Paleogene period or system and the Cenozoic era or erathem. The beginning of the Danian age is at the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event...

 and Thanetian

Thanetian

The Thanetian is, in the ICS' Geologic timescale, the latest age or uppermost stratigraphic stage of the Paleocene Epoch or series. It spans the time between and . The Thanetian is preceded by the Selandian age and followed by the Ypresian age...

 stages of the Paleocene

Paleocene

The Paleocene or Palaeocene, the "early recent", is a geologic epoch that lasted from about . It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era...

 epoch

Epoch (geology)

An epoch is a subdivision of the geologic timescale based on rock layering. In order, the higher subdivisions are periods, eras and eons. We are currently living in the Holocene epoch...

, respectively, shows that Bottosaurus had survived the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event and lived through much of the early Paleogene

Paleogene

The Paleogene is a geologic period and system that began 65.5 ± 0.3 and ended 23.03 ± 0.05 million years ago and comprises the first part of the Cenozoic Era...

period in these localities before finally becoming extinct somewhere around the end of the Paleocene.