a species of Steneosaurus in 1888. The holotype is an almost complete cranium, referred to as DORCM G97, missing the anterior portion of the rostrum. The skull was found from either Swanage or the Isle of Purbeck (hence the species name), although the exact locality from which the skull originated is not specified by the author of the original description. This material was also once referred to Macrorhynchus. The author of the 1888 description considered S. purbeckensis an intermediate form between Steneosaurus and Teleosaurus. However, in 2002, a new study showed that S. purbeckensis was conspecific with P. decipiens, creating the new combination Pholidosaurus purbeckensis. Another species of Pholidosaurus, P. laevis, was named in 1913 from Swanage, based on the partial cranium NHMUK R3414. This has been considered a junior synonym of P. purbeckensis by both Salisbury et al. (1999) and Salisbury (2002). In an SVPCA abstract, Smith et al. (2016) noted that Pholidosaurus purbeckensis is not congeneric with the type species, and instead is closely related to Fortignathus and members of Dyrosauridae. Classification Richard Lydekker assigned Pholidosaurus to the family Goniopholididae in 1887 along with Hylaeochampsa, Theriosuchus, Goniopholis, and Petrosuchus because the vertebrae are amphicoelus and the orbit communicates with the lateral temporal fossa. Pholidosaurus has often been grouped with other longirostrine, or long-snouted, crocodylomorphs, including dyrosaurids and thalattosuchians. Buckley and Brochu (1999) concluded that Pholidosaurus, Sokotosuchus, Dyrosauridae, and Thalattosuchia formed a longirostrine clade that was the sister taxon to Crocodylia. However, Thalattosuchia was traditionally considered a more basal clade of crocodylomorphs, being a more basal lineage of Mesoeucrocodylia than dyrosaurids or Pholidosaurus, both of which were considered neosuchians. The results of the phylogenetic analysis by Buckley and Brochu (1999) were attributed to the similarity in characters associated with snout elongation seen in these crocodylomorphs, even though these characters may have been independently derived in each group. More recent studies have revealed Thalattosuchia as a more basal clade when dyrosaurids are removed from the data set. More recent studies show that Pholidosaurus is closely related to the Thalattosuchia, with both taxa closely related to a clade containing Terminonaris and the Dyrosauridae. In a phylogenetic analysis conducted by Sereno et al. (2001), Pholidosaurus was placed as a distant sister taxon to the other longirostrine crocodylomorphs, with Terminonaris and the newly named Sarcosuchus being closely related to one another and Dyrosaurus being the next closest taxon to the group. The later