Litargosuchus  Litargosuchus is a sphenosuchian crocodylomorph, a basal member of the crocodylomorph clade from the Early Jurassic of South Africa. Its genus name "Litargosuchus" is derived from Greek meaning "fast running crocodile" and its species name "leptorhynchus" refers to its gracile snout. "Litargosuchus", along with all of South Africa's crocodylomorph taxa, are confined to the upper Elliot Formation (UEF) in South Africa. In 1988 James Kitching found the holotype fossil of "Litargosuchus" in a field expedition in Eagles Crag, a farm near Barkly East in the Eastern Cape. The material recovered consisted of a near-complete skull with its mandible and several bones belonging to the postcranial skeleton. At the time, Kitching was the director of the Evolutionary Studies Institute (previously the Bernard Price Institute) of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Kitching brought the holotype fossil back to the institute where he described it with fellow researcher, Christopher Gow. Together Kitching and Gow unfortunately misidentified this new species of sphenosuchian crocodylomorph and assigned the fossils to an existing crocodylomorph species, "Pedeticosaurus leviseuri". Over a decade later in 2002, two researchers visiting from abroad, Jim Clark and Hans-Dieter Sues, re-described the fossils. After their analysis, Clark and Sues discovered that the fossils belonged to a new species of sphenosuchian crocodylomorph and coined the current name for the species. The "Litargosuchus" fossil is monotypic and is the only known fossil of this species that has been found to date. Unfortunately, the skull material of the "Litargosuchus" holotype was lost and no new fossils have yet been yielded from the Elliot Formation. However, new "Litargosuchus" fossils may be found in the future. A dedicated research lab based at the Evolutionary Studies Institute has led several field expeditions to localities where Elliot Formation rocks are exposed with the hope of finding more fossil material. Jonah Choiniere, an old PhD student of Clark, leads this research lab. The remains of the holotype currently remain stored at the Evolutionary Studies Institute. "Litargosuchus" was a small, gracile non-crocodyloform spheosuchid crocodylomorph restricted to the Sinemurian of the lower Jurassic.