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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 polyphylet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prestosuchidae
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] |
Prestosuchus
''Prestosuchus'' (meaning "Prestes crocodile") is an extinct genus of pseudosuchian in the group Loricata, which also includes ''Saurosuchus'' and ''Postosuchus''. It has historically been referred to as a "rauisuchian", and was the defining member of the family Prestosuchidae, though the validity of both of these groups is questionable: Rauisuchia is now considered Paraphyly, paraphyletic and Prestosuchidae is Polyphyly, polyphyletic in its widest form. History of study ''Prestosuchus chiniquensis'' was first discovered in the Santa Maria Formation at the Paleontological Site Chiniquá, near the city of São Pedro do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, São Pedro do Sul in 1928 or 1929, by the German paleontologist Friedrich von Huene on a trip to Brazil. Von Huene named the genus in 1938 in honor of Vicentino Prestes de Almeida. This site is located in the geopark of Paleorrota. Munich specimens The first two specimens of ''Prestosuchus'' to be described were found at the Weg Sanga s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudosuchia
Pseudosuchia 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". Prior to 2011, the clade Pseudosuchia was often called Crurotarsi in reference to the crurotarsal ankle found in almost all members of the group, which traditionally included phytosaurs, ornithosuchids, and suchians. However, a major 2011 study of Triassic archosaur relations proposed that phytosaurs were not closely related to other traditional "crurotarsans", at least compared to "bird-line archosaurs" (Avemetatarsalians) such as pterosaurs and dinosaurs. As a result, the possession of a crurotarsal ankle was considered a plesiomorphic ("primitive") feature retained by pseudosuchians. Crurotarsi now refers to a broader group of reptiles including Pseudosuchia, Phytosauria, and Avemetatarsalia. Despite Pseudosuchia meaning "false crocodiles", th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rauisuchidae
Rauisuchidae is a group of large (up to or more) predatory Triassic archosaurs. There is some disagreement over which genera should be included in Rauisuchidae and which should be in the related Prestosuchidae and Poposauridae, and indeed whether these should even be thought of as separate valid families. Rauisuchids occurred throughout much of the Triassic, and may have first occurred in the Early Triassic if some archosaurian taxa such as ''Scythosuchus'' and ''Tsylmosuchus'' are considered to be within the family. An early cladistic analysis of crocodylotarsan (pseudosuchian) archosaurs included ''Lotosaurus ''Lotosaurus'' is an extinct genus of sail-backed poposauroid Poposauroidea is a clade of advanced pseudosuchians (archosaurs closer to crocodilians than to dinosaurs). It includes poposaurids, shuvosaurids, ctenosauriscids, and other unusual ...'', ''Fasolasuchus'', ''Rauisuchus'', and "the Kupferzell rauisuchid" (later called ''Batrachotomus'') within Rauisuchidae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archosaur
Archosauria () is a clade of diapsids, with birds and crocodilians as the only living representatives. Archosaurs are broadly classified as reptiles, in the cladistic sense of the term which includes birds. Extinct archosaurs include non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and extinct relatives of crocodilians. Modern paleontologists define Archosauria as a crown group that includes the most recent common ancestor of living birds and crocodilians, and all of its descendants. The base of Archosauria splits into two clades: Pseudosuchia, which includes crocodilians and their extinct relatives, and Avemetatarsalia, which includes birds and their extinct relatives (such as non-avian dinosaurs and pterosaurs). Older definitions of the group Archosauria rely on shared morphological characteristics, such as an antorbital fenestra in the skull, serrated teeth, and an upright stance. Some extinct reptiles, such as proterosuchids and euparkeriids, possessed these features yet originated pri ... [...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 "prosauropod ... [...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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudosuchia
Pseudosuchia 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". Prior to 2011, the clade Pseudosuchia was often called Crurotarsi in reference to the crurotarsal ankle found in almost all members of the group, which traditionally included phytosaurs, ornithosuchids, and suchians. However, a major 2011 study of Triassic archosaur relations proposed that phytosaurs were not closely related to other traditional "crurotarsans", at least compared to "bird-line archosaurs" (Avemetatarsalians) such as pterosaurs and dinosaurs. As a result, the possession of a crurotarsal ankle was considered a plesiomorphic ("primitive") feature retained by pseudosuchians. Crurotarsi now refers to a broader group of reptiles including Pseudosuchia, Phytosauria, and Avemetatarsalia. Despite Pseudosuchia meaning "false crocodiles", th ... [...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 dinosaurian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Charig
Alan Jack Charig (1 July 1927 – 15 July 1997) was an English palaeontologist and writer who popularised his subject on television and in books at the start of the wave of interest in dinosaurs in the 1970s. Charig was, though, first and foremost a research scientist in the Department of Palaeontology at the Natural History Museum, London. There he worked on dinosaurs and their immediate Triassic ancestors, but also studied creatures as varied as limbless amphisbaenians (worm-lizards) and a Fijian gastropod, '' Thatcheria''. Biography Charig was educated at The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, an independent school (at that time in Hampstead), and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. His university education was interrupted by National Service in the Royal Armoured Corps, first as a tank driver and, after volunteering for an Inter-Services Russian language course at Cambridge, as a Russian interpreter in Germany, from 1946 to 1948. On graduating in Zoology in 1951, Charig too ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyphyly
A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of convergent evolution. The arrangement of the members of a polyphyletic group is called a polyphyly .. ource for pronunciation./ref> It is contrasted with monophyly and paraphyly. For example, the biological characteristic of warm-bloodedness evolved separately in the ancestors of mammals and the ancestors of birds; "warm-blooded animals" is therefore a polyphyletic grouping. Other examples of polyphyletic groups are algae, C4 photosynthetic plants, and edentates. Many taxonomists aim to avoid homoplasies in grouping taxa together, with a goal to identify and eliminate groups that are found to be polyphyletic. This is often the stimulus for major revisions of the classification schemes. Researchers concerned more with ecology than with system ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paraphyly
In taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In contrast, a monophyletic group (a clade) includes a common ancestor and ''all'' of its descendants. The terms are commonly used in phylogenetics (a subfield of biology) and in the tree model of historical linguistics. Paraphyletic groups are identified by a combination of synapomorphies and symplesiomorphies. If many subgroups are missing from the named group, it is said to be polyparaphyletic. The term was coined by Willi Hennig to apply to well-known taxa like Reptilia ( reptiles) which, as commonly named and traditionally defined, is paraphyletic with respect to mammals and birds. Reptilia contains the last common ancestor of reptiles and all descendants of that ancestor, including all extant reptiles as well as the extinct synapsids, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
