Fasolasuchus is an extinct genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of rauisuchid

Rauisuchidae

Rauisuchidae is a group of large predatory Triassic archosaurs, and constitute advanced representatives of the larger group Rauisuchia. There is some disagreement over which genera should be included in the Prestosuchidae, which in Rauisuchidae, and which in the Poposauridae, and indeed whether...

 rauisuchia

Rauisuchia

Rauisuchia is a group of predatory and mostly large Triassic archosaurs. As a clade, Rauisuchia includes these Triassic forms and all crocodylomorphs, which are descendants of Triassic rauisuchians. The group in its traditional sense is paraphyletic, because it does not include crocodylomorph...

n. Fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

s have been found from Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 that date back to the Rhaetian

Rhaetian

The Rhaetian is in geochronology the latest age of the Triassic period or in chronostratigraphy the uppermost stage of the Triassic system. It lasted from 203.6 ± 1.5 to 199.6 ± 0.6 million years ago...

 stage of the Late Triassic

Late Triassic

The Late Triassic is in the geologic timescale the third and final of three epochs of the Triassic period. The corresponding series is known as the Upper Triassic. In the past it was sometimes called the Keuper, after a German lithostratigraphic group that has a roughly corresponding age...

, making it one of the last rauisuchians to have existed before the order

Order (biology)

In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...

 went extinct at the end of the Triassic. It is quite possibly the largest known member of Rauisuchia, with an estimated length of 8–10 meters (26.4–33 ft), even bigger than the prestosuchid

Prestosuchidae

Prestosuchids were a group of Triassic carnivorous archosaurs. They were large active terrestrial apex predators, ranging from around in length. They succeeded the Erythrosuchidae as the largest archosaurs of their time...

 Saurosuchus

Saurosuchus

Saurosuchus is an extinct genus of rauisuchian archosaur in the family Prestosuchidae. With a length of around 7 m , it was the largest rauisuchian, except perhaps for the less well known Fasolasuchus. Like other rauisuchians, Saurosuchus walked on four fully erect limbs...

at 7 meters (23.1 ft) in length. This would make Fasolasuchus the largest terrestrial predator to have ever existed save for large theropods. Like Saurosuchus, it had only a single row of caudal osteoderm

Osteoderm

Osteoderms are bony deposits forming scales, plates or other structures in the dermal layers of the skin. Osteoderms are found in many groups of extant and extinct reptiles, including lizards, various groups of dinosaurs , crocodilians, phytosaurs, aetosaurs, placodonts, and hupehsuchians...

s, unusual among rauisuchians. It also had a hyposphene-hypantrum articulation that gave the vertebral column extra rigidity. This feature is also seen in several other rauisuchians such as Postosuchus

Postosuchus

Postosuchus, meaning "crocodile from Post ", was a basal archosaur that lived in what is now North America during the middle through to the late Triassic period...

as well as saurischia

Saurischia

Saurischia meaning 'lizard' and ischion meaning 'hip joint') is one of the two orders, or basic divisions, of dinosaurs. In 1888, Harry Seeley classified dinosaurs into two orders, based on their hip structure...

n dinosaur

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...

s.

External links

• Fasolasuchus in the Paleobiology Database
  Paleobiology Database
  ' is an online resource for information on the distribution and classification of fossil animals, plants, and microorganisms.-History:The Paleobiology Database was founded in 2000. It has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council...