Longosuchus
Longosuchus is an extinct genus of desmatosuchin aetosaur from the Late Triassic of North America. Reported fossils from Morocco are likely misidentified scutes of a paratypothoracin aetosaur. Longosuchus measured about 3 metres in length.

A Cynical Idealist · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- DesmatosuchiniPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Aetosauria
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida
Time the record covers
At most 32 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 237 Mya and 205.7 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
3 occurrences of Longosuchus on record, most of them in the Late Triassic. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
3 occurrences- Late Triassic100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
- Colorado City Formation · Dockum Group3
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The named rock units Longosuchus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Longosuchus and its relatives
Late TriassicWhere Longosuchus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.
Found in the same rock
23 taxa- Anaschisma browni2 sites
- Lucasuchus hunti2 sites
- Parasuchus bransoni2 sites
- Postosuchus kirkpatricki2 sites
- Trilophosaurus buettneri2 sites
- Aetosauria1 site
- Archosauria1 site
- Brachysuchus megalodon1 site
- Coahomasuchus kahleorum1 site
- Crocodylomorpha1 site
- Dromomeron gregorii1 site
- Mystriosuchinae1 site
- Otischalkia elderae1 site
- Paleorhinus sawini1 site
- Phytosauria1 site
- Poposaurus gracilis1 site
- Poposaurus langstoni1 site
- Shuvosaurus inexpectatus1 site
- Silesauridae1 site
- Theropoda1 site
- Trilophosaurus1 site
- Triopticus primus1 site
- Turseodus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Longosuchus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- The pseudosuchian reptile Typothorax meadei2
- Late Triassic (Carnian and Norian) Tetrapods from the Southwestern United States1
Each of the 3 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Longosuchus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- A Cynical Idealist
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Longosuchus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Longosuchus”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itDesmatosuchini through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hunt and Lucas 1990