Doswellia

Doswellia
Temporal range: Late Triassic, 220 Ma
Life restoration of Doswellia kaltenbachi in mid-stride
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Archosauromorpha
Clade: Archosauriformes
Clade: Proterochampsia
Family: Doswelliidae
Genus: Doswellia
Weems, 1980
Type species
Doswellia kaltenbachi
Weems, 1980

Doswellia is an extinct genus of archosauriform from the Late Triassic of North America. It is the most notable member of the family Doswelliidae, related to the proterochampsids. Doswellia was a low and heavily built carnivore which lived during the Carnian stage of the Late Triassic.[1] It possesses many unusual features including a wide, flattened head with narrow jaws and a box-like rib cage surrounded by many rows of bony plates. The type species Doswellia kaltenbachi was named in 1980 from fossils found within the Vinita member of the Doswell Formation (formerly known as the Falling Creek Formation) in Virginia. The formation, which is found in the Taylorsville Basin, is part of the larger Newark Supergroup. Doswellia is named after Doswell, the town from which much of the taxon's remains have been found. A second species, D. sixmilensis, was described in 2012 from the Bluewater Creek Formation of the Chinle Group in New Mexico;[1] however, this species was subsequently transferred to a separate doswelliid genus, Rugarhynchos.[2] Bonafide Doswellia kaltenbachi fossils are also known from the Chinle Formation of Arizona.[3]

  1. ^ a b Heckert, Andrew B.; Lucas, Spencer G.; Spielmann, Justin A. (2012). "A new species of the enigmatic archosauromorph Doswellia from the Upper Triassic Bluewater Creek Formation, New Mexico, USA". Palaeontology. 55 (6): 1333–1348. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2012.01200.x.
  2. ^ Brenen M. Wynd; Sterling J. Nesbitt; Michelle R. Stocker; Andrew B. Heckert (2020). "A detailed description of Rugarhynchos sixmilensis, gen. et comb. nov. (Archosauriformes, Proterochampsia), and cranial convergence in snout elongation across stem and crown archosaurs". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 39 (6): e1748042. doi:10.1080/02724634.2019.1748042. S2CID 219917329.
  3. ^ Parker, William G.; Nesbitt, Sterling J.; Marsh, Adam D.; Kligman, Ben T.; Bader, Kenneth (2021-11-03). "First occurrence of Doswellia cf. D. kaltenbachi (Archosauriformes) from the Late Triassic (middle Norian) Chinle Formation of Arizona and its implications on proposed biostratigraphic correlations across North America during the Late Triassic". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 41 (3): e1976196. doi:10.1080/02724634.2021.1976196. ISSN 0272-4634. S2CID 243474578.