Protosuchus

Protosuchus is an extinct genus of carnivorous crocodyliform from the Early Jurassic. It is among the earliest animals that resemble crocodilians. Protosuchus was about 80 centimetres (2.6 ft) in length.

Protosuchus

Smokeybjb · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
ProtosuchidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Pseudosuchia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida

Time the record covers

At most 13 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 205.7 Mya and 192.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Triassic — about 3 of 16 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 13 of 16 occurrencesEarly Jurassic206–205 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences205–205 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences205–204 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences204–204 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences204–203 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences203–203 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences203–203 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences203–202 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences202–202 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences202–201 Mya — about 1 occurrence201–201 Mya — about 2 occurrences201–200 Mya — about 2 occurrences200–200 Mya — about 2 occurrences200–199 Mya — about 1 occurrence199–199 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences199–198 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences198–198 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences198–197 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences197–197 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences197–197 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences197–196 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences196–196 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences196–195 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences195–195 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences195–194 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences194–194 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences194–193 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences193–193 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences206.2 Mya192.4 Mya

16 occurrences of Protosuchus on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. 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

16 occurrences

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

5 formations

McCoy Brook — 45.40°N, 64.22°WMoenave — 35.78°N, 111.12°WMoenave — 36.00°N, 111.25°WElliot — 29.22°S, 27.34°EElliot — 28.53°S, 28.50°EElliot — 28.32°S, 27.60°EElliot — 28.42°S, 28.50°EElliot — 30.32°S, 24.73°EPrzysucha — 50.93°N, 21.63°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Protosuchus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Protosuchus and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Protosuchus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

21 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Protosuchus, 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

7 references

Each of the 16 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. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Protosuchus

Credit
Smokeybjb
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Protosuchus richardsoni · amnh:farb:3024

The description on this site

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 itProtosuchidae through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brown 1934