Postosuchus
| Postosuchus | ||||||||||||
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Skeleton reconstruction of Postosuchus kirkpatricki |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Triassic : Carnian to Norian | ||||||||||||
| 235 to 208.5 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Postosuchus | ||||||||||||
| Chatterjee , 1985 | ||||||||||||
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Postosuchus is a genus of extinct archosaurs from the group of the Rauisuchidae from the Upper Triassic of North America.
features
The previously found Postosuchus - fossils originate long copies of two to five meters. All currently known specimens of Postosuchus have, compared to other Rauisuchi , relatively slender limbs. He had a tall, narrow, strong-jawed skull, which outwardly resembled that of the carnivorous dinosaurs , the theropods . The jaws were covered with teeth of different sizes, curved backwards. Like the theropods, Postosuchus was a top predator of his time. Of the two species described so far, the back of Postosuchus alisonae was covered with osteoderms . Postosuchus had longer hind legs than front legs and walked on all four legs (quadruped). It is possible that he was facultatively biped . The front legs could also have been used to hold prey in place while pieces of meat were torn out.
Systematics
Despite the superficial resemblance to theropods, Postosuchus is neither a dinosaur nor closely related to them. Rather, it belongs to the archosaur group of Crurotarsi , to which today's crocodiles also belong. Dinosaurs, on the other hand, are representatives of the ornithodira . Crurotarsi and Ornithodira differ in the structure of the ankle, the joint line of which in the Crurotarsi runs between the tarsal bones astragalus and calcaneus , while in the Ornithodira it is below it. Within the Rauisuchidae, Postosuchus is likely closely related to Arizonasaurus , Chatterjeea, and Sillosuchus .
literature
- Karin Peyer, Joseph G. Carter, Hans-Dieter Sues , Stephanie E. Novak, Paul E. Olsen: A new suchian from the Upper Triassic of North Carolina. In: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Vol. 28, No. 2, 2008, pp. 363-381, doi : 10.1671 / 0272-4634 (2008) 28 [363: ANSAFT] 2.0.CO; 2 .
- 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 .
