Metoposauridae is an extinct

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

of trematosaurian

temnospondyl Temnospondyli (from Greek τέμνειν, ''temnein'' 'to cut' and σπόνδυλος, ''spondylos'' 'vertebra') is a diverse order of small to giant tetrapods—often considered primitive amphibians—that flourished worldwide during the Carb ...

s. The family is known from the

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest per ...

period. Most members are large, approximately long and could reach 3 m long.Brusatte, S. L., Butler R. J., Mateus O., & Steyer S. J. (2015). A new species of Metoposaurus from the Late Triassic of Portugal and comments on the systematics and biogeography of metoposaurid temnospondyls. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. e912988., 2015: Metoposaurids can be distinguished from the very similar mastodonsauroids by the position of their eyes, placed far forward on the snout.

Taphonomy

Several mass accumulations of metoposaurid fossils are known from the southwestern United States and

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

. These have often been interpreted as the result of mass deaths from droughts. Many individuals would have died in one area, creating a dense bone bed once fossilized. These mass accumulations of metoposaurids are often dominated by one taxa, such as ''

Anaschisma ''Anaschisma'' is an extinct genus of large temnospondyl amphibians. These animals were part of the family called Metoposauridae, which filled the crocodile-like predatory niches in the late Triassic. It had large skull about long, and possibly ...

'' or ''

Metoposaurus ''Metoposaurus'' meaning "front lizard" is an extinct genus of stereospondyl temnospondyl amphibian, known from the Late Triassic of Germany, Italy, Poland, and Portugal. https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app47/app47-535.pdf This mostly a ...

''. Recent sedimentological studies suggest that the mass accumulations were not the result of droughts, but of river currents carrying remains. Most skeletons in these accumulations are disarticulated, suggesting they were transported by water to the deposition sites. The large gatherings of metoposaurids may have been breeding sites, and were probably common across floodplains in Late Triassic

Pangaea Pangaea or Pangea () was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous approximately 335 million y ...

References

External links

Metoposauridae at The Paleobiology Database.
Triassic temnospondyls Trematosaurs Amphibian families {{temnospondyli-stub