Name:
Nundasuchus
(Predator crocodile).
Phonetic: Nun-dah-su-kuss.
Named By: Sterling J. Nesbitt, Christian A.
Sidor, Kenneth D. Angielczyk, Roger M. H. Smith &
Linda A. Tsuji - 2014.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Pseudosuchia.
Species: N. songeaensis
(type).
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Roughly estimated at about 2.7 to 3
meters long.
Known locations: Tanzania - Manda Formation.
Time period: Mid Triassic.
Fossil representation: Mostly known from partial
post cranial fossils, but partial maxilla and lower jaw bones also
found.
Nundasuchus
is a genus of archosaurian predator that lived in Tanzania during the
mid Triassic. Nundasuchus superficially resembles
a rauisuchian,
however the exact phylogenetic position of Nundasuchus
is still
uncertain at the time of writing. Currently most prefer to consider
it a member of the Pseudosuchia, the same group that also includes
the rauisuchians.
Nundasuchus
lived at a point in the Triassic that was the golden age for large
archosaurian predators, and like other similar animals was probably
an ambush predator of relatively slow moving herbivores such as
dicynodonts. At this time the immediate ancestors of the dinosaurs
were already roaming the land, and developing into more and more
advanced forms as the Triassic moved on. By the end of the Triassic,
archosaurs like Nundasuchus and related genera
were largely replaced
by the Dinosaurs as top predators on land.
Further reading
- A new archosaur from the Manda beds (Anisian, Middle Triassic)
of southern Tanzania and its implications for character state
optimizations at Archosauria and Pseudosuchia. - Journal of
Vertebrate Paleontology 34 (6): 1357–1382. - Sterling J.
Nesbitt, Christian A. Sidor, Kenneth D. Angielczyk, Roger
M. H. Smith & Linda A. Tsuji - 2014.