Crocodylinae is a subfamily of true crocodiles within the family Crocodylidae, and is the sister taxon to Osteolaeminae (dwarf crocodiles and slender-snouted crocodiles).

Taxonomy

Crocodylinae was cladistically defined by Christopher Brochu in 1999 as Crocodylus niloticus (the Nile crocodile) and all crocodylians more closely related to it than to Osteolaemus tetraspis (the Dwarf crocodile). This is a stem-based definition, and is the sister taxon to Osteolaeminae. Crocodylinae contains the extant genus Crocodylus. It is disputed as to whether is also includes Mecistops (slender-snouted crocodiles), or the extinct genus Voay.

Phylogeny

Some morphological studies have recovered Mecistops as a basal member of Crocodylinae, more closely related to Crocodylus than to Osteolaemus and the other members of Osteolaeminae, as shown in the cladogram below. The below cladogram is based on a 2021 study using paleogenomics that extracted DNA from the extinct Voay, recovering it as a member of Crocodylinae.

Species list

Crocodylinae contains 13-14 extant species and 6 extinct species.