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Ornithosuchidae—Early Archosaurs with a Hyperspecialized Jaw Apparatus

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Abstract

Early archosaurs included a range of ecological types—from predators to herbivores and from terrestrial to semi-aquatic forms. Members of the family Ornithosuchidae, traditionally considered active predators, occupy a special position. Their characteristic jaw apparatus structure and the morphology of their postcranial skeleton suggest the development of a unique ecological type among archosaurs, namely, a medium-sized hyperanisodont macrophagous predator. At the same time, some analogs can be noted between ornithosuchids, saber-toothed therapsids, and mammals.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is sincerely grateful to J.B. Desojo (Desojo (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas), R.N. Martinez (Instituto y Museo de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de San Juan), and all Argentinian colleagues who assisted him in visiting Argentina in 2011 to participate in the “Fourth Latin American Congress on Vertebrate Paleontology” and study materials on fossil tetrapods; A.V. Tikhomirova and E.A. Galoyan (Zoological Museum of Moscow State University) for providing the opportunity to study and photograph tetrapod specimens, as well as to A.V. Lavrov (Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences) for valuable comments.

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  1. Borissiak Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, 117647, Moscow, Russia

    A. G. Sennikov

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Sennikov, A.G. Ornithosuchidae—Early Archosaurs with a Hyperspecialized Jaw Apparatus. Paleontol. J. 58, 1–19 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0031030124010064

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