Ornithosuchidae
| Ornithosuchidae | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ornithosuchus with its prey, the rhynchosaur Hyperodapedon |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Triassic ( Carnian to Norian ) | ||||||||||||
| 228 to 203.6 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Ornithosuchidae | ||||||||||||
| von Huene , 1908 |
The Ornithosuchidae are a taxon of extinct predatory reptiles from the Archosauria group . They lived in the Upper Triassic and reached a length of 0.5 to 4 meters. Outwardly they resemble the theropods , predatory dinosaurs, but their ankle corresponds to that of the crocodiles , with which they, together with other forms, form the taxon of the Crurotarsi .
features
Their hind legs were longer than their front legs and were largely vertical, so they were only slightly splayed and more or less vertically below the body. Probably the animals could move both quadruped (on four legs) and biped (only on the hind legs), the front legs still reached two thirds of the length of the hind legs. The skull was large compared to the torso, but gracefully built. The skull surface was flat, the skull windows were large, the neck strong and short. Between the premaxillary and maxillary they had a large diastema , into which two teeth of the lower jaw reached when the mouth was closed. The teeth were large and flattened on the sides. The Ornithosuchidae were armored on the back by two rows of small bone plates ( osteodermata ), on the tail by a row of bone plates.
Genera
literature
- Michael J. Benton : Paleontology of the vertebrates. Translation of the 3rd English edition by Hans-Ulrich Pfretzschner. Pfeil, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-89937-072-0 .
- Robert L. Carroll : Paleontology and Evolution of the Vertebrates. Thieme, Stuttgart et al. 1993, ISBN 3-13-774401-6 .
Web links
- Palæos Ornithosuchidae