Tarjadia

Tarjadia
Temporal range: Middle Triassic
242–235 Ma
Tarjadia ruthae
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Archosauria
Clade: Pseudosuchia
Family: †Erpetosuchidae
Genus: †Tarjadia
Arcucci et al. 1998
Species
  • †T. ruthae Arcucci et al. 1998 (type)

Tarjadia is an extinct genus of erpetosuchid pseudosuchian, distantly related to modern crocodilians. It is known from a single species, T. ruthae, first described in 1998 from the Middle Triassic Chañares Formation in Argentina. Partial remains have been found from deposits that are Anisian-Ladinian in age. Long known mostly from osteoderms, vertebrae, and fragments of the skull, specimens described in 2017 provided much more anatomical details and showed that it was a fairly large predator. Tarjadia predates known species of aetosaurs and phytosaurs, two Late Triassic groups of crurotarsans with heavy plating, making it one of the first heavily armored archosaurs. Prior to 2017, most studies placed it outside Archosauria as a member of Doswelliidae, a family of heavily armored and crocodile-like archosauriforms.[1][2] The 2017 specimens instead show that it belonged to the Erpetosuchidae.[3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Archeopelta was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Ezcurra, Martín D. (2016-04-28). "The phylogenetic relationships of basal archosauromorphs, with an emphasis on the systematics of proterosuchian archosauriforms". PeerJ. 4: e1778. doi:10.7717/peerj.1778. ISSN 2167-8359. PMC 4860341. PMID 27162705.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).