[1] The type species Aegisuchus witmeri was named in 2012 by paleontologists Casey Holliday and Nicholas Gardner, who nicknamed it "Shieldcroc" for the shield-like shape of its skull.

The quadrate bone in the temporal region of the skull has a rectangular projection called the adductor tubercle, which served as an attachment for muscles that closed the jaw.

At the front of the skull table, projections on the laterosphenoid bones called capitate processes face out to the side.

[1] The flattened shape of the skull of Aegisuchus suggests that it was an ambush predator resting at the surface of the water.

Muscles like the adductor mandibulae externus medialis, which are weak in most crocodilians, became more important as jaw closers and were greatly enlarged.

The broad-surfaced occipital region at the back of the skull provides a large attachment area for the splenius capitis muscles of the neck.

With a long flattened snout, Aegisuchus would have had great difficulty in raising its head and opening its mouth if it did not have large neck muscles.

The phylogeny can be shown in the cladogram below:[1] Theriosuchus Goniopholis Bernissartia Isisfordia Hylaeochampsa Gavialoidea Borealosuchus Leidyosuchus Crocodyloidea Alligatoroidea Aegyptosuchus Aegisuchus During the Late Cretaceous, northern Africa was a humid region near the Tethys Ocean, a seaway between the southern continents of Gondwana and northern land masses of Laurasia.

Aegisuchus lived within this delta alongside fishes, turtles, snakes and varanid lizards, pterosaurs, and sauropod and theropod dinosaurs.

However, the presence of aegyptosuchids such as Aegisuchus in northern Africa suggests that early crocodilian evolution was focused instead around the Tethys Ocean.