Archosaurus

Archosaurus is an extinct genus of carnivorous proterosuchid archosauriform reptile. Its fossils are dated to the latest Permian of Russia, it is one of the earliest known archosauriforms. The type and only species is Archosaurus rossicus, known from several fragmentary specimens which cumulatively represent parts of the skull and cervical vertebrae. It would have been 3 m long when fully grown. Archosaurus is the namesake of the Archosaurus zone, the final Late Permian tetrapod biozone in Russia.

Archosaurus

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
ProterosuchidaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida

Time the record covers

At most 3.1 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 259.857 Mya and 256.8 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Permian — about 4 of 4 occurrencesPermian260–260 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences260–259 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences259–259 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences259–259 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences259–259 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences259–259 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences259–259 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences259–259 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences259–258 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences258–257 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences257–257 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences257–257 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences257–257 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences257–257 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences257–257 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences260.36 Mya256.3 Mya

4 occurrences of Archosaurus on record, most of them in the Permian. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

4 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Archosaurus and its relatives

Permian

Where Archosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

36 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Archosaurus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

2 references

Each of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Archosaurus

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Archosaurus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itProterosuchidae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Tatarinov 1960