Postosuchus alisonae
Postosuchus, Ancient Greek, meaning "Crocodile from Post", is an extinct genus of rauisuchid reptiles comprising two species, P. kirkpatricki and P. alisonae, that lived in what is now North America during the Late Triassic. Postosuchus is a member of the clade Pseudosuchia, the lineage of archosaurs that includes modern crocodilians. Its name refers to Post Quarry, a place in Texas where many fossils of the type species, P. kirkpatricki, were found.

Dallas Krentzel · CC BY 2.0 · 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
- PostosuchusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Pseudosuchia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida
Time the record covers
At most 32 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 237 Mya and 205.7 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Postosuchus alisonae 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
1 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.
Postosuchus alisonae and its relatives
Late TriassicWhere Postosuchus alisonae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.
Found in the same rock
6 taxa- Crocodylomorpha1 site
- Dicynodontia1 site
- Dromicosuchus grallator1 site
- Plinthogomphodon herpetairus1 site
- Stegomus1 site
- Temnospondyli1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Postosuchus alisonae, 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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Postosuchus alisonae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Dallas Krentzel
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Photogrammetry
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Postosuchus alisonae · NCSM:NCSM-VertPaleo:13731
Smithsonian Open Access was 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, “Postosuchus”
- 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 itPostosuchus through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Peyer et al. 2008