''Fasolasuchus'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

loricatan 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 ...

Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s have been found in the

Los Colorados Formation The Los Colorados Formation is a sedimentary rock formation of the Ischigualasto-Villa Unión Basin, found in the provinces of San Juan and La Rioja in Argentina. The formation dates back to the Norian age of the Late Triassic. The up to thick f ...

of the

Ischigualasto-Villa Unión Basin The Ischigualasto-Villa Unión Basin ( es, Cuenca de Ischigualasto-Villa Unión) is a small sedimentary basin located in the Argentine Northwest, Argentina. It is located in the southwestern part of La Rioja Province and the northeastern part of ...

in northwestern

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

that date back to the

Norian The Norian is a division of the Triassic Period. It has the rank of an age (geochronology) or stage (chronostratigraphy). It lasted from ~227 to million years ago. It was preceded by the Carnian and succeeded by the Rhaetian. Stratigraphic defi ...

stage of the

Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch ...

, making it one of the last rauisuchians to have existed before the order became extinct at the end of the Triassic.

Description

It is quite possibly the largest known member of Rauisuchia, with an estimated length of to , even bigger than the

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 th ...

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 ...

'' at in length. This would make ''Fasolasuchus'' the largest terrestrial predator to have ever existed save for large

theropod Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally c ...

s. Like ''Saurosuchus'', it had only a single row of caudal

osteoderm Osteoderms are bony deposits forming scales, plates, or other structures based in the dermis. Osteoderms are found in many groups of extant and extinct reptiles and amphibians, including lizards, crocodilians, frogs, temnospondyls (extinct amp ...

s, unusual among rauisuchians. It also had a hyposphene-hypantrum articulation that gave the vertebral column extra rigidity. This feature is also seen in several other rauisuchians such as ''

Postosuchus ''Postosuchus'', meaning "Crocodile from Post", is an extinct genus of rauisuchid reptiles comprising two species, ''P. kirkpatricki'' and ''P. alisonae'', that lived in what is now North America during the Late Triassic. ''Postosuchus'' is a ...

'' as well as

saurischia Saurischia ( , meaning "reptile-hipped" from the Greek ' () meaning 'lizard' and ' () meaning 'hip joint') is one of the two basic divisions of dinosaurs (the other being Ornithischia), classified by their hip structure. Saurischia and Ornithis ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

Phylogeny

Cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to d ...

after the analysis of Nesbitt (2011):

References

External links

''Fasolasuchus''
in the

Paleobiology Database The Paleobiology Database is an online resource for information on the distribution and classification of fossil animals, plants, and microorganisms. History The Paleobiology Database (PBDB) originated in the NCEAS-funded Phanerozoic Marine Pale ...

* Paracrocodylomorphs Norian life Late Triassic reptiles of South America Triassic Argentina Fossils of Argentina Los Colorados Formation Fossil taxa described in 1981 Taxa named by José Bonaparte Prehistoric pseudosuchian genera {{paleo-archosaur-stub