From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Hoplosuchus

Extinct genus of reptiles

Hoplosuchus is a genus of crocodyliform belonging to Protosuchidae. It is so far only known definitely from one specimen, a skeleton collected from sandstone of the Upper Jurassic-age Morrison Formation rocks at Dinosaur National Monument, Utah, during road construction. The individual was small, approximately 20 cm long, although it may have been very young. It is the basalmost crocodyliform of the Morrison Formation, as suggested by such attributes as still having antorbital fenestrae in the skull. The limbs were relatively long, suggesting that the animal was terrestrial. Two rows of bony scutes ran down the back. The crowns of the teeth are not well preserved, so the diet cannot be determined with certainty. Given its small size, it probably ate insects and small vertebrates; it may have been carnivorous or omnivorous.

Classification

Charles W. Gilmore named Hoplosuchus in 1926; the type species is H. kayi. He described it as an aetosaur, a type of armored herbivorous archosaur related to the crocodylomorphs, but it was later reevaluated as a crocodylomorph itself. a 1988 review of atoposaurids found it more likely to be a protosuchian-grade crocodylomorph. A potential second specimen has been recovered from the Morrison Formation of northeastern Arizona; this individual would have been about 50 cm, but the skull is poorly preserved, leaving the identity of the animal unknown.

References

Foster, John. (2007). "Jurassic West: The Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation and Their World". Indiana University Press.
Carroll, Robert L.. (1988). "Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution". W.H. Freeman and Company.
Buscalioni, Angela D.. (1988). "Phylogenetic relationships of the Atoposauridae (Archosauria, Crocodylomorpha)". Historical Biology.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

crocodyliformes late-jurassic-crocodylomorphs-of-north-america late-jurassic-crocodylomorphs morrison-fauna taxa-named-by-charles-w.-gilmore fossil-taxa-described-in-1926 prehistoric-pseudosuchian-genera

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Hoplosuchus — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report