Akanthosuchus (meaning "spine crocodile," in reference to its armor) is an extinct genus of alligatoroid crocodilian, possibly an alligatorine.

The hind legs, numerous back, hip, and tail vertebrae (28), and armor (about 200 scutes) were the primary elements preserved.

The type species is A. langstoni, honoring paleontologist Wann Langston Jr., known for his work on fossil crocodilians.

They contacted only one other scute each, and may have been arranged in paired sets down the midline of the back and tail, and along the sides of the animal.

[2] O'Neill and colleagues compared Akanthosuchus to Pinacosuchus, a crocodylomorph with spiked scutes known from the Late Cretaceous North Horn Formation of Utah, but it differed from Akanthosuchus in several ways: it was much smaller (three to four times smaller than NMMNH NP-139), it had less derived vertebrae, and it lacked bladed scutes.

[1] O'Neill et al. suggested that Akanthosuchus was an alligatorine, based on the characteristics of a partial lower jaw bone (retroarticular).

They considered the possibility that Akanthosuchus is a postcranial skeleton of either Ceratosuchus or Navajosuchus, contemporaneous crocodilians known primarily from skulls, but elected to name a new genus instead.