Suchia
Suchia is a clade of archosaurs containing the majority of pseudosuchians. It was defined as the least inclusive clade containing Aetosaurus ferratus, Rauisuchus tiradentes, Prestosuchus chiniquensis, and Crocodylus niloticus by Nesbitt (2011). Generally the only pseudosuchian group which is omitted from Suchia is the family Ornithosuchidae, although at least one analysis classifies ornithosuchids as close relatives of erpetosuchids and aetosaurs. Phytosaurs are also excluded from Suchia, although it is not certain whether they qualify as pseudosuchians in the first place.

Vince Smith from London, United Kingdom · CC BY-SA 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
- PseudosuchiaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Pseudosuchia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida
Time the record covers
At least 248 million years on record.
The record covers at least 248.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 251.902 Mya to 0 Mya.
6,315 occurrences of Suchia on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
6,315 occurrences- Early Triassicunder 1%
- Middle Triassicunder 1%
- Late Triassic10%
- Early Jurassic4%
- Middle Jurassic4%
- Late Jurassic7%
- Early Cretaceous10%
- Late Cretaceous24%
- Paleocene5%
- Eocene10%
- Oligocene2%
- Miocene13%
- Pliocene2%
- Pleistocene6%
- Holocene1%
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
1019 formations
- Chinle Formation252
- Hell Creek Formation · Montana Group199
- Willwood Formation169
- Solimões Formation100
- Morrison Formation99
- Koobi Fora Formation · Omo Group79
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The named rock units Suchia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 995 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 1,045 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Suchia and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Suchia and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
2,816 taxa- Crocodylus66 sites
- Crocodylia48 sites
- Equus38 sites
- Clarias35 sites
- Trionychidae35 sites
- Bovidae34 sites
- Alcelaphini33 sites
- Geochelone33 sites
- Trionyx33 sites
- Lepisosteus31 sites
- Crocodylus niloticus30 sites
- Osteichthyes29 sites
- Hipparion28 sites
- Euthecodon brumpti26 sites
- Palaeoloxodon recki24 sites
- Reptilia24 sites
- Aves23 sites
- Gazella22 sites
- Kobus22 sites
- Suidae22 sites
- Theropithecus oswaldi22 sites
- Giraffidae21 sites
- Lates21 sites
- Mammalia21 sites
The Paleobiology Database records at least 1,439 sites for Suchia, and this reads 240 of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
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
2,404 references- Stratigraphy and mammalian paleontology of the McCullough Peaks, northern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming: Implications for biochronology, basin development, and community reorganization across the Paleocene-Eocene boundary148
- Late Triassic (Carnian and Norian) Tetrapods from the Southwestern United States136
- Review of the Late Cretaceous-early Paleogene crocodylomorphs of Europe: Extinction patterns across the K-PG boundary91
- Georeferencing fossiliferous localities from Solimões and Acre Basins (Brazil) -what we know so far about Solimões Formation and future perspectives87
- Fossil Vertebrate Collections72
- Vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Hell Creek Formation in southwestern North Dakota and northwestern South Dakota68
- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil vertebrates and so forth58
- Fossil crocodilians from Colombia and the Cenozoic history of the Crocodilia in South America52
- Exceptional continental record of biotic recovery after the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction47
- Vertebrate faunal changes through Lancian and Puercan time in southern Wyoming41
- A 60-million-year Cenozoic history of western Amazonian ecosystems in Contamana, eastern Peru39
- Evolutionary relationships and systematics of Atoposauridae (Crocodylomorpha: Neosuchia): implications for the rise of Eusuchia33
Each of the 6,315 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. 2,392 further references are not listed. 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 content1
Picture of Suchia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Vince Smith from London, United Kingdom
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Suchia 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, “Suchia”
- 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 itPseudosuchia through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Krebs 1974