Rhinesuchidae

Rhinesuchids Temporal range: Guadalupian-Early Triassic, 279.3–247.2 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Rhinesuchus
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Order:	†Temnospondyli
Suborder:	†Stereospondyli
Family:	†Rhinesuchidae Watson, 1919
Genera
†Australerpeton? Barbarena, 1998 †Broomistega Broom, 1930 †Laccosaurus Haughton, 1925 †Parapytanga? Strapasson et al., 2015 †Rastosuchus Dias et al., 2020 †Rhineceps Haughton, 1927 †Rhinesuchoides Olson & Broom, 1937 †Rhinesuchus Broom, 1908 †Uranocentrodon van Hoepen, 1911
Synonyms
Australerpetonidae Barbarena, 1998 Rhinecepidae Oschev, 1966 Uranocentrodontidae Romer, 1947

Rhinesuchidae is a family of tetrapods that lived primarily in the Permian period. They belonged to the broad group Temnospondyli, a successful and diverse collection of semiaquatic tetrapods which modern amphibians are probably descended from. Rhinesuchids can be differentiated from other temnospondyls by details of their skulls, most notably the interior structure of their otic notches at the back of the skull. They were among the earliest-diverging members of the Stereospondyli, a subgroup of temnospondyls with flat heads and aquatic habits. Although more advanced stereospondyls evolved to reach worldwide distribution in the Triassic period, rhinesuchids primarily lived in the high-latitude environments of Gondwana (what is now South America and Africa) during the Guadalupian and Lopingian epochs of the Permian. The taxonomy of this family has been convoluted, with more than twenty species having been named in the past; a 2017 review recognized only eight of them (distributed among seven genera) to be valid. While several purported members of this group have been reported to have lived in the Triassic period, most are either dubious or do not belong to the group. However, at least one valid genus of rhinesuchid is known from the early Triassic, a small member known as Broomistega. The most recent formal definition of Rhinesuchidae, advocated by Mariscano et al. (2017) is that of a stem-based clade containing all taxa more closely related to Rhinesuchus whaitsi than to Lydekkerina huxleyi or Peltobatrachus pustulatus.^[1] A similar alternate definition is that Rhinesuchidae is a stem-based clade containing all taxa more closely related to Uranocentrodon senekalensis than to Lydekkerina huxleyi, Trematosaurus brauni, or Mastodonsaurus giganteus.^[2]