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Prestosuchid
Prestosuchidae (in its widest usage) is a polyphyletic grouping of carnivorous archosaurs that lived during the Triassic. They were large active terrestrial apex predators, ranging from around in length. They succeeded the Erythrosuchidae as the largest archosaurs of their time. While resembling erythrosuchids in size and some features of the skull and skeleton, they were more advanced in their erect posture and crocodile-like ankle, indicating more efficient gait. "Prestosuchids" flourished throughout the whole of the middle, and the early part of the late Triassic, and fossils are so far known from Europe, India, Africa (Tanzania), Argentina, and Paleorrota in Brazil. However, for a long time experts disagree regarding the phylogenetic relationships of the group, what genera should be included, and whether indeed the "Prestosuchidae" constitute a distinct family. In 2011, Prestosuchidae in its broadest definition was determined to be a poorly-diagnosed and obsolete polyphyleti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poposauridae
Poposauridae is a family of large carnivorous archosaurs which lived alongside dinosaurs during the Late Triassic. They were around long. Poposaurids are known from fossil remains from North and South America. While originally believed to be theropod dinosaurs (they mirrored the theropods in a number of respects, such as features of the skull and bipedal locomotion), cladistic analysis has shown them to be more closely related to crocodiles. An early cladistic analysis of crocodylotarsan archosaurs included ''Poposaurus'', ''Postosuchus'', '' Teratosaurus'', and ''Bromsgroveia'' within Poposauridae.Parrish JM. 1993. Phylogeny of the Crocodylotarsi, with reference to archosaurian and crurotarsan monophyly. ''Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology'' 13: 287-308. However, later studies found '' Teratosaurus'' to be a rauisuchid.Long RA, Murry PA. 1995. Late Triassic (Carnian and Norian) tetrapods from the Southwestern United States. ''New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clade
In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach to taxonomy adopted by most biological fields. The common ancestor may be an individual, a population, or a species (extinct or Extant taxon, extant). Clades are nested, one in another, as each branch in turn splits into smaller branches. These splits reflect evolutionary history as populations diverged and evolved independently. Clades are termed ''monophyletic'' (Greek: "one clan") groups. Over the last few decades, the cladistic approach has revolutionized biological classification and revealed surprising evolutionary relationships among organisms. Increasingly, taxonomists try to avoid naming Taxon, taxa that are not clades; that is, taxa that are not Monophyly, monophyletic. Some of the relationships between organisms that the molecul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ornithosuchidae
Ornithosuchidae is an extinct family (biology), family of Pseudosuchia, pseudosuchian archosaurs (distant relatives of modern Crocodilia, crocodilians) from the Triassic period. Ornithosuchids were quadrupedal and facultatively bipedal (e.g. like Chimpanzee, chimpanzees), meaning that they had the ability to walk on two legs for short periods of time. They had distinctive, downturned snouts, unique, "crocodile-reversed" ankle bones, and several other features that distinguish them from other archosaurs. Ornithosuchids were geographically widespread during the Carnian and Norian stages of the Late Triassic with members known from Argentina, Brazil, and the United Kingdom. Four genera, comprising ''Ornithosuchus'', ''Venaticosuchus, Dynamosuchus,'' and ''Riojasuchus'' are presently known. The family was first erected by German paleontologist Friedrich von Huene in 1908. Description Skull Ornithosuchids can be identified by the presence of an arched Diastema (dentistry), diastem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phytosaur
Phytosaurs (Φυτόσαυροι in Greek, meaning 'plant lizard') are an extinct group of large, mostly semiaquatic Late Triassic archosauriform or basal archosaurian reptiles. Phytosaurs belong to the order Phytosauria and are sometimes referred to as parasuchians. Phytosauria, Parasuchia, Parasuchidae, and Phytosauridae have often been considered equivalent groupings containing the same species. Some recent studies have offered a more nuanced approach, defining Parasuchidae and Phytosauridae as nested clades within Phytosauria as a whole. The clade Phytosauria was defined by Paul Sereno in 2005 as '' Rutiodon carolinensis'' and all taxa more closely related to it than to '' Aetosaurus ferratus'', '' Rauisuchus tiradentes'', '' Prestosuchus chiniquensis'', '' Ornithosuchus woodwardi'', or '' Crocodylus niloticus'' (the Nile crocodile). Phytosaurs were long-snouted and heavily armoured, bearing a remarkable resemblance to modern crocodilians in size, appearance, and lifesty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synapomorphy
In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel Phenotypic trait, character or character state that has evolution, evolved from its ancestral form (or Plesiomorphy and symplesiomorphy, plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxon, taxa and is therefore Hypothesis#Scientific hypothesis, hypothesized to have evolved in their most recent common ancestor. ) In cladistics, synapomorphy implies Homology (biology), homology. Examples of apomorphy are the presence of Terrestrial locomotion#Posture, erect gait, fur, Evolution of mammalian auditory ossicles, the evolution of three middle ear bones, and mammary glands in mammals but not in other vertebrate animals such as amphibians or reptiles, which have retained their ancestral traits of a Terrestrial locomotion#Posture, sprawling gait and lack of fur. Thus, these derived traits are also synapomorphies of mammals in general as they are not shared by other vertebrate animals. Etymology The word ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Outgroup (cladistics)
In cladistics or phylogenetics, an outgroup is a more distantly related group of organisms that serves as a reference group when determining the evolutionary relationships of the ingroup, the set of organisms under study, and is distinct from sociological outgroups. Character states present in the ingroup but absent in the outgroup are (often) synapomorphies that provide empirical support for the inferred monophyly of the ingroup; character states that are present in the outgroup and some members of the ingroup are symplesiomorphies, and their complementary synapomorphies shared among some members of the ingroup provide hypotheses of relationship within the ingroup clade. The outgroup is used as a point of comparison for the ingroup and specifically allows for the phylogeny to be rooted. Because the polarity (direction) of character change can be determined only on a rooted phylogeny, the choice of outgroup is essential for understanding the evolution of traits along a phylogeny. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ticinosuchus
''Ticinosuchus'' is an extinct genus of suchian archosaur from the Middle Triassic (Anisian– Ladinian) of Switzerland and Italy. Description One of only a handful of fossil reptiles that have been found in Switzerland, ''Ticinosuchus'' (meaning "Ticino crocodile" due to its origin from the Swiss canton Ticino) was about long, and its whole body, even the belly, was covered in thick, armoured scutes. These scutes were sometimes considered to have been staggered, alternating between several rows. However, some studies refute this claim, instead purporting that the scutes were aligned in neat rows, with a one-to-one assignment of scutes to vertebrae. The structure of the hips shows that its legs were placed under the body almost vertically. Coupled with the development of a calcaneus and a specialized ankle joint, this would have made ''Ticinosuchus'' a fast runner, unlike most earlier reptiles. ''Ticinosuchus'' is thought to be very close to or possible even the same species t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudosuchia
Pseudosuchia, from Ancient Greek ψεύδος (''pseúdos)'', meaning "false", and σούχος (''soúkhos''), meaning "crocodile" is one of two major divisions of Archosauria, including living crocodilians and all archosaurs more closely related to crocodilians than to birds. Pseudosuchians are also informally known as "crocodilian-line archosaurs", in contrast to the "bird-line archosaurs" or Avemetatarsalia. Despite Pseudosuchia meaning "false crocodiles", the name is a misnomer as true crocodilians are now defined as a subset of the group. The clade Pseudosuchia is potentially equivalent to another term, Crurotarsi, even though the latter has a different, Node-based taxon, node-based definition: "all taxa the least inclusive clade containing ''Rutiodon carolinensis'' (Emmons, 1856), and ''Crocodylus niloticus'' (Laurenti, 1768)." Many paleontologists of the late 20th century took this proposal for granted, using Crurotarsi as the term for crocodilian ancestors. In 2011, a m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Procerosuchus
''Procerosuchus'' is an extinct genus of loricatan archosaur. Fossils have been collected from the Late Triassic Santa Maria Formation in Geopark of Paleorrota, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, which is Carnian in age. The genus was first described by the German paleontologist Friedrich von Huene in 1942. Classification Initially, ''Procerosuchus'' was regarded as a stagonolepidid along with the genera ''Rauisuchus'' and ''Prestosuchus''. Later, it was reassigned by Huene to the family Rauisuchidae. Alfred Sherwood Romer first considered ''Procerosuchus'' to be a possible ornithosuchid, but later assigned it to the family Prestosuchidae, which he constructed in 1966. In 1972, Romer assigned ''Procerosuchus'' as a possible member of the family Proterochampsidae. Krebs (1976) considered it to be a rauisuchid, as did Chatterjee (1985) and Carroll (1988). ''Procerosuchus'' has been suggested to be member of the subfamily Rauisuchinae and the tribe Rauisuchini. However, the genus has not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spondylosoma
''Spondylosoma'' (meaning "vertebra body") is a genus of avemetatarsalian archosaur belonging to the clade Aphanosauria from the late Ladinian-age Middle Triassic Lower Santa Maria Formation in Paleorrota Geopark, Brazil. History Friedrich von Huene based the genus on a fragmentary postcranial skeleton held at the University of Tübingen. This skeleton includes two teeth, two cervical vertebrae, four dorsal vertebrae, three sacral vertebrae, scapulae, part of a humerus, part of a femur, and part of a pubis. At the time, he thought it was a prosauropod.von Huene, F. (1942). ''Die fossilen Reptilien des südamerikanischen Gondwanalandes.'' C.H. Beck:Munich, 342 p. erman/ref> With the discovery of the basal dinosaur '' Staurikosaurus'', ''Spondylosoma'' drew attention as a possible relative. Authors went back and forth on the question, considering it either as a basal dinosaur, or as a " thecodont" or other basal archosaur. In 2000, Peter Galton noted that it lacks dinosauri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandasuchus
''Mandasuchus'' is an extinct genus of loricatan pseudosuchian from the Manda Formation of Tanzania, which dates back to the Anisian stage of the Middle Triassic. Although this genus was first mentioned by Alan Charig in 1956,Charig, A. J. (1956). New Triassic archosaurs from Tanganyika, including ''Mandasuchus'' and ''Teleocrater'': Dissertation Abstracts. Cambridge University. a formal description was not published until 2018. History The name was first used in a 1956 doctoral dissertation by Alan J. Charig of the University of Cambridge, along with '' Teleocrater'', an archosaur formally named in 2017. Several well preserved specimens have been found, although there is little cranial material. The family Prestosuchidae was erected in 1967 by Alfred Romer to include ''Mandasuchus'' and three other formally named genera of "rauisuchians". Charig and two coauthors suggested in a 1965 study dealing with saurischians that ''Mandasuchus'' was a possible ancestor of the "prosaurop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
