Thoosuchus

Thoosuchus is an extinct genus of basal trematosauroid trematosaurian temnospondyl. Fossils have been found from Russia and date back to the Early Triassic. It is the type genus of the family Thoosuchidae, formerly called the subfamily Thoosuchinae and placed within Benthosuchidae. The benthosuchids were originally composed of the majority of basal trematosaurian forms regarded as the ancestors of the trematosaurids.

Thoosuchus

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
TrematosauroideaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Temnospondyli
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Environment
brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda

Time the record covers

At most 5 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 251.902 Mya and 247 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Permian — about 0 of 17 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 17 of 17 occurrencesEarly TriassicMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 17 occurrences252–252 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences252–252 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences252–251 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences251–251 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences251–251 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences251–251 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences251–251 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences251–250 Mya — about 1 occurrence250–250 Mya — about 1 occurrence250–250 Mya — about 1 occurrence250–250 Mya — about 1 occurrence250–250 Mya — about 1 occurrence250–249 Mya — about 1 occurrence249–249 Mya — about 1 occurrence249–249 Mya — about 1 occurrence249–249 Mya — about 1 occurrence249–249 Mya — about 1 occurrence249–248 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences248–247 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences247–247 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences247–247 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences247–247 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences252.4 Mya246.5 Mya

17 occurrences of Thoosuchus on record, most of them in the Early 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

17 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

6 formations

Kzylsaiskaya — 51.59°N, 53.86°EKzylsaiskaya — 52.29°N, 53.09°EKzylsaiskaya — 52.36°N, 52.71°EKzylsaiskaya — 52.36°N, 52.41°EKzylsaiskaya — 52.24°N, 52.22°EKzylsaiskaya — 52.50°N, 51.32°EStaritskaya — 52.30°N, 53.08°EStaritskaya — 52.33°N, 52.95°EStaritskaya — 52.40°N, 52.69°EStaritskaya — 52.38°N, 52.45°EStaritskaya — 52.23°N, 52.02°EStaritskaya — 52.50°N, 51.07°EVetlugian Series — 57.43°N, 41.55°ERybinsk — 58.02°N, 39.04°EMechet' — 52.80°N, 51.78°EKamennyi Yar — 52.82°N, 55.72°E

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The named rock units Thoosuchus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Thoosuchus and its relatives

Early Triassic

Where Thoosuchus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Triassic.

Found in the same rock

35 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Thoosuchus, 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

4 references

Each of the 17 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 Thoosuchus

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

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itTrematosauroidea through timeFormations of the Early TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Efremov 1940