Resumen de Rediscovery of Georges Cuvier’s "fossil crocodiles from Le Mans area" after two centuries of disregard
In 1808 and then in 1824, Georges Cuvier reported in the region of Le Mans (Département of Sarthe, northwestern France) fossil crocodiles upon which the species Crocodilus maunyi GRAY, 1831 was created. He had been informed of these findings by the naturalist Jean Louis Charles Maulny (1758–1815) and by Jean Antoine Daudin (1749–1832), the first curator of the natural history museum of Le Mans. Due the lack of published figures, this material has remained enigmatic for two centuries. Unpublished watercolors preserved in the archives of Georges Cuvier unveil the specimens described by Cuvier under the name "fossil crocodiles from Le Mans area". They include teeth, vertebrae and portion of jaws of marine crocodylomorphs and plesiosaurians discovered in the Mesozoic of the Département of Sarthe (Bathonian, Callovian, Cenomanian ?). One of these drawings depicts a pliosaurid tooth discovered in the Bathonian of Bernay-en-Champagne that would be the earliest discovery of a representative of this group. Two other drawings show a portion of mandible of a marine crocodylomorph (Thalattosuchia, Metriorhynchidae indeterminate) and a vertebra of a plesiosaurian (Plesiosauria indeterminate) from the middle Callovian of Chaufour-Notre-Dame, still preserved in the Musée Vert, the natural history museum of Le Mans. These two specimens were discovered in 1816 by a local amateur, doctor Eusèbe Marie Tendron (1778–1854). Crocodilus maunyi GRAY, 1831 is considered a nomen dubium due to the lack of diagnostic characters offered by its syntypes.
