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.[1] The genus was first described by the German paleontologist Friedrich von Huene in 1942.[2]

Procerosuchus
Temporal range: Carnian
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Archosauria
Clade: Pseudosuchia
Clade: Loricata
Genus: Procerosuchus
Huene, 1942
Type species
Procerosuchus celer
Huene, 1942

Classification

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Initially, Procerosuchus was regarded as a stagonolepidid along with the genera Rauisuchus and Prestosuchus.[2] 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.[3][4] In 1972, Romer assigned Procerosuchus as a possible member of the family Proterochampsidae.[5] Krebs (1976) considered it to be a rauisuchid, as did Chatterjee (1985) and Carroll (1988).[6][7][8]

Procerosuchus has been suggested to be member of the subfamily Rauisuchinae and the tribe Rauisuchini.[9] However, the genus has not yet been included in any phylogenetic analyses of rauisuchians, and its classification remains uncertain. The alpha taxonomy of rauisuchians is still debated (the order itself is now considered paraphyletic) and the anatomy of many taxa, including Procerosuchus, has not yet been thoroughly described.[10] Procerosuchus does not seem to belong to a recently identified monophyletic grouping of rauisuchians termed Clade X (and now known as Poposauroidea), which includes poposaurids and ctenosauriscids.[11]

References

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  1. ^ Gower, D. J. (2000). "Rauisuchian archosaurs (Reptilia:Diapsida): An overview" (PDF). Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen. 218 (3): 447–488. doi:10.1127/njgpa/218/2000/447.
  2. ^ a b Huene, F. v. (1942). "Ergebnisse der Sauriergrabungen in Südbrasilien 1928/29". Die fossilen Reptilien des südamerikanischen Gondwanalandes. München: C. H. Beck. p. 332.
  3. ^ Romer, A. S. (1956). Osteology of Reptiles. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 772. ISBN 0-89464-985-X.
  4. ^ Romer, A. S. (1966). Vertebrate Paleontology (3rd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 468. ISBN 0-226-72488-3.
  5. ^ Romer, A. S. (1972). "The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic Reptile Fauna. XVI. Thecodont Classification". Breviora. 395: 1–24.
  6. ^ Kuhn, O. (1976). "Pseudosuchia". In Kuhn, O. (ed.). Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie (13th ed.). Stuttgart: G. Fischer Verlag. pp. 40–98. ISBN 0-89574-191-1.
  7. ^ Chatterjee, S. (1985). "Postosuchus, a new thecodontian reptile from the Triassic of Texas and the origin of tyrannosaurs". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 309 (1139): 395–460. Bibcode:1985RSPTB.309..395C. doi:10.1098/rstb.1985.0092.
  8. ^ Carroll, R. L. (1988). Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. pp. 1–698. ISBN 0-7167-1822-7.
  9. ^ Sennikov, A. G. (1995). "Ranniye Tekodont Vostochnoy Yevropy". Trudy Paleontologicheskogo Instituta. 263. Moscow: 1–141.
  10. ^ Gower, D. J.; Schoch, R. R. (2009). "Postcranial anatomy of the rauisuchian archosaur Batrachotomus kupferzellensis" (PDF). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 29 (1): 103–122. doi:10.1080/02724634.2009.10010365. S2CID 196611289.
  11. ^ Nesbitt, S. J. (2005). "Osteology of the Middle Triassic pseudosuchian archosaur Arizonasaurus babbitti". Historical Biology. 17 (1–4): 19–47. doi:10.1080/08912960500476499. S2CID 84326151.
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