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What did phytosaurs look like?

What did phytosaurs look like?

Some phytosaurs evolved into crocodile-like animals, with long slender snouts filled with sharp teeth perfect for catching slippery prey. The main difference between the two groups is the location of the nostrils, which are found at the tip of the snout in modern crocodiles but near the eyes in phytosaurs.

What killed the phytosaurs?

This indicates that phytosaurs continued as successful animals until the very end of the Triassic, when, along with many other large crurotarsan reptiles, they were killed off by the end Triassic extinction event, about 200 Ma ago. There have been reports of phytosaur remains found in lowermost Jurassic rocks.

Is a phytosaur a dinosaur?

Phytosaur, heavily armoured semiaquatic reptiles found as fossils from the Late Triassic Period (about 229 million to 200 million years ago). Phytosaurs were not dinosaurs; rather both groups were archosaurs, a larger grouping that also includes crocodiles and pterosaurs (flying reptiles).

When did the phytosaurs go extinct?

about 201 million years ago
The phytosaurs are long gone. They did not survive the mass extinction that dramatically altered life on Earth at the end of the Triassic, about 201 million years ago.

Why did Phytosaurs go extinct?

Phytosaurs, which had many of the same adaptations as crocodiles, went extinct at the end of the Triassic. Jennifer’s data on fossil stomata supported the hypothesis that global warming played a role in the end-Triassic mass extinction.

Why did the Phytosaurs go extinct?

Is Postosuchus a phytosaur?

Specimens similar to Postosuchus were discovered in Crosby County, Texas in 1920, and described by paleontologist Ermine Cowles Case in 1922. These early findings, from 1932 to 1943, were initially referred to as a new phytosaur reptile, but assigned forty years later to Postosuchus.

Was the Phytosaur a predator?

Phytosaurs look like modern crocodiles, but are not related. They were 15-17 feet long with a long tail and short, stout legs. With bony plates for body protection and sharp teeth, they were successful predators on land and in water.

Is Phytosaur related to crocodile?

Despite the strong similarities between phytosaurs and crocodiles, the two groups are not closely related. Phytosaurs are the most primitive group of pseudosuchians — even the plant-eating aetosaurs, sail-backed ctenosauriscids, and bipedal shuvosaurs were more closely related to crocodilians.

Where did all the phytosaurs in the world come from?

All known phytosaurs are from Upper Triassic rocks. An animal called Mesorhinosuchus was described as a primitive phytosaur from the Lower Triassic of Germany. It had characters intermediate between early archosauriforms and later phytosaurs.

How are phytosaurs related to other archosaurs?

Some recent studies of the evolutionary relationships of early archosauriforms suggest that phytosaurs evolved before the split between crocodile- and bird-line archosaurs and are the sister taxon of Archosauria. Others retain the older classification of phytosaurs as pseudosuchians. Phytosaurs had a nearly global distribution during the Triassic.

What kind of phytosaur has a broad snout?

Modern crocodilians exhibit a similar morphological diversity, for example the broad snouted altirostral alligator and the long snouted dolichorostral gavial. Various phytosaurs have crests and similar ornamentions in their snouts.

How did a phytosaur look like a crocodile?

Most pseudosuchians or “croc-line” archosaurs didn’t look much like crocodiles, but phytosaurs were a definite exception. In fact, phytosaurs looked almost exactly like living crocs. They had short legs, wide, heavy bodies with rows of armored scales, long tails, and long toothy snouts.