''Dagasuchus'' is an extinct
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of
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 ...
n
archosaur from the
Late Triassic
The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch of the Triassic Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch and followed by the Early Jurassic Epoch. ...
(
Carnian
The Carnian (less commonly, Karnian) is the lowermost stage (stratigraphy), stage of the Upper Triassic series (stratigraphy), Series (or earliest age (geology), age of the Late Triassic Epoch (reference date), Epoch). It lasted from 237 to 227 m ...
) of
Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, represented by the
type species
In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...
''Dagasuchus santacruzensis''. ''D. santacruzensis'' was named in 2015 on the basis of a partial hip (one
ilium and a pair of
ischia
Ischia ( , , ) is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about from Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Roughly trapezoidal in shape, it measures approximately east to west ...
) found in an exposure of the
Santa Maria Formation
The Santa Maria Formation is a sedimentary rock formation found in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. It is primarily Carnian in age (Late Triassic), and is notable for its fossils of cynodonts, "rauisuchian" pseudosuchians, and early dinosaurs and other ...
in the
Paraná Basin
The Paraná Basin ( pt, Bacia do Paraná, es, Cuenca del Paraná) is a large cratonic sedimentary basin situated in the central-eastern part of South America. About 75% of its areal distribution occurs in Brazil, from Mato Grosso to Rio Grande d ...
, near the city of
Santa Cruz do Sul
Santa Cruz do Sul () is a city in central Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The city has an estimate 131,000 inhabitants as of 2020 and sits about 150 km (93 miles) from the capital city of the state, Porto Alegre. The city enjoys a high standard ...
. ''Dagasuchus'' is an early member of a large evolutionary group called
Loricata
Loricata is a clade of archosaur reptiles that includes crocodilians and some of their Triassic relatives, such as '' Postosuchus'' and ''Prestosuchus''. More specifically, Loricata includes Crocodylomorpha (the persistent archosaur subset which ...
, which originated in the Triassic and includes modern
crocodylia
Crocodilia (or Crocodylia, both ) is an order of mostly large, predatory, semiaquatic reptiles, known as crocodilians. They first appeared 95 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period (Cenomanian stage) and are the closest living ...
ns and their ancestors. Features of its hip closely resemble those of other early loricatans such as ''
Stagonosuchus
''Stagonosuchus'' is an extinct genus of loricatan, or possibly a species of ''Prestosuchus''. Fossils have been found from the Late Triassic Manda Formation in Tanzania that are Anisian in age.
Unlike other rauisuchians, which have a prominen ...
'' and ''
Saurosuchus
''Saurosuchus'' (meaning "lizard crocodile") is an extinct genus of large loricatan pseudosuchian archosaur that lived in South America during the Late Triassic period. It was a heavy, ground-dwelling, quadrupedal carnivore, likely being the ape ...
''. ''Dagasuchus'' is notable for being the first loricatan found in the ''
Santacruzodon'' assemblage zone of the Santa Maria Formation; previously loricatans were only known from the older ''
Dinodontosaurus
''Dinodontosaurus'' (meaning "terrible-toothed lizard") is a genus of dicynodont therapsid. It was medium to large dicynodont of the Triassic (with skull up to long) and had a beak corneum. It lived in the Middle Triassic but disappeared in the ...
'' assemblage zone and the younger ''
Hyperodapedon
''Hyperodapedon'' is a genus of rhynchosaurs (beaked, archosaur-like reptiles) from the Late Triassic period (Carnian stage). Fossils of the genus have been found in Africa, Asia, Europe and North and South America. Its first discovery and namin ...
'' assemblage zone within the Santa Maria Formation, meaning that ''Dagasuchus'' fills in a gap in the fossil record of the group.
References
Paracrocodylomorphs
Triassic paracrocodylomorphs
Carnian genera
Late Triassic reptiles of South America
Triassic Brazil
Fossils of Brazil
Santa Maria Formation
Fossil taxa described in 2015
Prehistoric pseudosuchian genera
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