| Protosuchia Temporal range: Late Triassic - Late Cretaceous
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| A skeleton of Protosuchus richardsoni in the American Museum of Natural History | |
Scientific classification 
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Archosauria |
| Clade: | Pseudosuchia |
| Clade: | Crocodylomorpha |
| Clade: | Crocodyliformes |
| Informal group: | †Protosuchia Mook, 1934 |
| Subgroups | |
Protosuchia is a group of extinct Mesozoic crocodyliforms. They were small in size (~1 meter in length) and terrestrial. In phylogenetic terms, Protosuchia is considered an informal group because it is a grade of basal crocodyliforms, not a true clade.
Classification
Recent phylogenetic analyses have not supported Protosuchia as a natural group. However, two studies found a clade of Late Triassic-Early Jurassic animals:12
Both of these studies also found a clade more closely related to Hsisosuchus and Mesoeucrocodylia consisting of Late Jurassic-Late Cretaceous genera:12
However, other possible protosuchians from the Late Cretaceous of China-Mongolia, the Gobiosuchidae (Gobiosuchus and Zaraasuchus), have been found to be either intermediate between these two clades,1 or members of the Sichuanosuchus clade.2 There is also another family of Late Jurassic-Late Cretaceous genera, the Shartegosuchidae (e.g. Kyasuchus, Shartegosuchus and Nominosuchus).
Below is a cladogram from Fiorelli and Calvo (2007).2 Protosuchians are marked by the green bracket.
Protosuchians |
References
References
- Pol D, Ji S-a, Clark JM, Chiappe LM. 2004. Basal crocodyliforms from the Lower Cretaceous Tugulu Group (Xinjiang, China), and the phylogenetic position of Edentosuchus. Cretaceous Research 25: 603-622.
- Fiorelli LE, Calvo JO. 2007. The first "protosuchian" (Archosauria: Crocodyliformes) from the Cretaceous (Santonian) of Gondwana. Arquivos do Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro 65 (4): 417-459.