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We describe two new osteolaemine crocodylids from the Early and early Middle Miocene of Kenya: Kinyang mabokoensis tax. nov. (Maboko, 15 Ma) and Kinyang tchernovi tax. nov. (Karungu and Loperot, 18 Ma). Additional material referable to Kinyang is known from Chianda and Moruorot. The skull was broad and dorsoventrally deep, and the genus can be diagnosed based on the combined presence of a partial overbite, a subdivided fossa for the lateral collateral ligament on the surangular, and a maxilla with no more than 13 alveoli. Phylogenetic analyses based on morphological and combined morphological and molecular data support a referral of Kinyang to Osteolaeminae, and morphological data alone put the new taxon at the base of Euthecodontini. Some Kinyang maxillae preserve blind pits on the medial caviconchal recess wall. Kinyang co-occurs with the osteolaemine Brochuchus at some localities, and together, they reinforce the phylogenetic disparity between early Neogene osteolaemine-dominated faunas and faunas dominated by crocodylines beginning in the Late Miocene in the Kenya Rift. The causes of this turnover remain unclear, though changes in prevailing vegetation resulting from tectonic and climatic drivers may provide a partial explanation., (© 2022 The Authors. The Anatomical Record published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Association for Anatomy.)

Three crocodylid species are known from the Pliocene Kanapoi locality in the western Turkana Basin. One of these, Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni, includes material previously referred to Crocodylus niloticus (the modern Nile crocodile currently living in Lake Turkana) and Rimasuchus lloydi. C. thorbjarnarsoni was a gigantic horned crocodile similar in overall shape to most other generalized crocodylids, but its closest known relative is another extinct species, Crocodylus anthropophagus from the Pleistocene of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. It is not closely related to C. niloticus. The second is an extinct form of sharp-nosed crocodile (Mecistops), a group of slender-snouted crocodylids currently restricted to western and central Africa. The third is Euthecodon, a crocodylid with an extremely long, slender, and distinctively notched snout. Euthecodon and C. thorbjarnarsoni are known from substantial numbers of specimens, but only one Mecistops specimen has been identified from the locality. The crocodylian fauna at Kanapoi is taxonomically similar to that of most other Plio-Pleistocene fluviolacustrine deposits in the Turkana Basin. Crocodylian diversity in the Turkana region contracted from a peak of five co-existing species in the late Miocene to one today; this contraction was underway by the early Pliocene, but crocodylian diversity remained stable at three species until well into the Quaternary., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)