Parasuchidae is a clade of

phytosaur Phytosaurs (Φυτόσαυροι in greek) are an extinct group of large, mostly semiaquatic Late Triassic archosauriform reptiles. Phytosaurs belong to the order Phytosauria. Phytosauria and Phytosauridae are often considered to be equivalent g ...

s more derived than ''Diandongosuchus'', a basal phytosaur. It encompasses nearly all phytosaurs, include early ''Parasuchus''-Evolutionary grade, grade forms as well as a more restricted clade of more specialized phytosaurs. This more restricted clade is traditionally known as the family Phytosauridae and more recently as the subfamily Mystriosuchinae. Parasuchids have been recovered from Late Triassic deposits in Europe, North America, India, Morocco, Thailand, Brazil, Greenland and Madagascar. In their osteology of ''Parasuchus'', Kammerer et al. (2016) suggested using Parasuchidae to include taxa traditionally included in Phytosauridae as well as ''Parasuchus''-grade taxa. Stocker et al. (2017) use the phytosaur classification advocated by Kammerer et al. (2016) by recovering ''Diandongosuchus'' as the basalmost phytosaur outside Parasuchidae, noting that ''Diandongosuchus'' has a shorter snout than parasuchids.Michelle R. Stocker; Li-Jun Zhao; Sterling J. Nesbitt; Xiao-Chun Wu; Chun Li (2017). "A Short-Snouted, Middle Triassic Phytosaur and its Implications for the Morphological Evolution and Biogeography of Phytosauria". Scientific Reports. 7: Article number 46028. doi:10.1038/srep46028.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q28598693 Phytosaurs Prehistoric reptile families Late Triassic reptiles Carnian first appearances Rhaetian extinctions Taxa named by Richard Lydekker