Metoposauridae is an extinct
family
Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
of
trematosauria
Trematosauria is one of two major groups of temnospondyl amphibians that survived the Permian-Triassic extinction event, the other (according to Yates and Warren 2000) being the Capitosauria. The trematosaurs were a diverse and important group t ...
n
temnospondyl
Temnospondyli (from Greek language, Greek τέμνειν, ''temnein'' 'to cut' and σπόνδυλος, ''spondylos'' 'vertebra') or temnospondyls is a diverse ancient order (biology), order of small to giant tetrapods—often considered Labyrinth ...
s. The family is known from the
Triassic
The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...
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. 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'' ("ripped up") is an extinct genus of large temnospondyls. These animals were part of the family called Metoposauridae, which filled the crocodile-like predatory Ecological niche, niches in the late Triassic. It had a large skull ab ...
'' or ''
Metoposaurus
''Metoposaurus'' meaning "front lizard" is an extinct genus of stereospondyl temnospondyls, known from the Late Triassic of Germany, Italy, Poland, and Portugal. https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app47/app47-535.pdf This mostly aquatic an ...
''.
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 period approximately 335 mi ...
.
References
External links
Metoposauridae at The Paleobiology Database.*
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Triassic temnospondyls
Temnospondyl families
{{temnospondyli-stub