Shuvosaurus Temporal range: Late Triassic,
early to middle | |
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Shuvosaurus head restoration, after the skull reconstruction of Lehane (2005, 2023) | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Clade: | Archosauria |
Clade: | Pseudosuchia |
Clade: | Paracrocodylomorpha |
Clade: | †Poposauroidea |
Family: | †Shuvosauridae |
Genus: | †Shuvosaurus Chatterjee, 1993 |
Species: | †S. inexpectatus
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Binomial name | |
†Shuvosaurus inexpectatus Chatterjee, 1993
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Synonyms | |
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Shuvosaurus (meaning "Shuvo [Chatterjee]'s lizard")[1] is a genus of beaked, bipedal poposauroid pseudosuchian from the Late Triassic (early to middle Norian) of western Texas. Despite superficially resembling a theropod dinosaur, especially the ostrich-like ornithomimids, it is instead more closely related to living crocodilians than to dinosaurs. Shuvosaurus is known by the type and only species S. inexpectatus, and is closely related to the very similar Effigia within the clade Shuvosauridae. Shuvosaurus was originally described from a restored skull and very few fragmentary postcranial bones as a probable ornithomimosaur, or at least a very ornithomimosaur-like early theropod. The true pseudosuchian affinities of Shuvosaurus were only recognised after the discovery of Effigia linked the skull of Shuvosaurus with similar poposauroid skeletal remains found in the same quarry.