Terrestrisuchus

Terrestrisuchus is an extinct genus of very small early crocodylomorph that was about 76 centimetres (30 in) long. Fossils have been found in Wales and Southern England and date from near the very end of the Late Triassic during the Rhaetian, and it is known by type and only known species T. gracilis. Terrestrisuchus was a long-legged, active predator that lived entirely on land, unlike modern crocodilians. It inhabited a chain of tropical, low-lying islands that made up southern Britain, along with similarly small-sized dinosaurs and abundant rhynchocephalians. Numerous fossils of Terrestrisuchus are known from fissures in limestone karst which made up the islands it lived on, which formed caverns and sinkholes that preserved the remains of Terrestrisuchus and other island-living reptiles.

Terrestrisuchus

Uncredited · 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
CrocodylomorphaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Pseudosuchia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida

Time the record covers

At most 9.7 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 237 Mya and 227.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Middle Triassic — about 0 of 9 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 9 of 9 occurrencesLate Triassic237–237 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences237–236 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences236–236 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences236–236 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences236–235 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences235–235 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences235–235 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences235–234 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences234–234 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences234–234 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences234–233 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences233–233 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences233–233 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences233–232 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences232–232 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences232–231 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences231–231 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences231–231 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences231–230 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences230–230 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences230–230 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences230–229 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences229–229 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences229–229 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences229–228 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences228–228 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences228–228 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences228–227 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences237.5 Mya226.8 Mya

9 occurrences of Terrestrisuchus 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

9 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.

Terrestrisuchus and its relatives

Late Triassic

Where Terrestrisuchus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.

Found in the same rock

35 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Terrestrisuchus, and this reads all 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

3 references

Each of the 9 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 content1

Picture of Terrestrisuchus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Terrestrisuchus 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

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 itCrocodylomorpha through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Crush 1984