Procerosuchus 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. Fossils have been collected from 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...

 Santa Maria Formation

Santa Maria Formation

The Santa Maria Formation is a sedimentary rock formation found in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. It has a late Ladinian – early Carnian age , and is notable for its fossils of early dinosaurs, including the herrerasaur Staurikosaurus, the basal saurischian Teyuwasu, and the basal sauropodomorph...

 in Geopark

Geopark

A Geopark is defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in its UNESCO Geoparks International Network of Geoparks programme as follows:...

 of Paleorrota

Paleorrota

Paleorrota , is a geopark located in the center of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The rocks and fossils found along the route date back to the times when there was only one supercontinent Pangaea....

, Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...

, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, which is Carnian

Carnian

The Carnian is the lowermost stage of the Upper Triassic series . It lasted from about 228.7 till 216.5 million years ago . The Carnian is preceded by the Ladinian and is followed by the Norian...

 in age. The genus was first described by the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 paleontologist Friedrich von Huene

Friedrich von Huene

Friedrich von Huene was a German paleontologist who named more dinosaurs in the early 20th century than anyone else in Europe.-Biography:...

 in 1942.

Classification

Initially, Procerosuchus was regarded as a stagonolepidid

Aetosaur

Aetosaurs are an extinct order of heavily armoured, medium- to large-sized Late Triassic herbivorous archosaurs. They have small heads, upturned snouts, erect limbs, and a body covered by plate-like scutes. All aetosaurs belong to the family Stagonolepididae...

 along with the genera Rauisuchus

Rauisuchus

Rauisuchus was a basal archosaur which lived in what is now the Geopark of Paleorrota, Brazil, during the middle Triassic period . Named after fossil collector Dr. Wilhelm Rau, Rauisuchus belonged to a group of land-dwelling relatives to crocodiles...

and Prestosuchus

Prestosuchus

Prestosuchus is an extinct genus of a group of rauisuchians called prestosuchids. Friedrich von Huene named the genus in honor of Vicentino Prestes de Almeida....

. Later, it was reassigned by Huene to the family Rauisuchidae. Alfred Sherwood Romer first considered Procerosuchus to be a possible ornithosuchid

Ornithosuchidae

Ornithosuchidae is an extinct family of reptiles from the Triassic period that were distantly related to crocodilians. They are classified as crurotarsan archosaurs. Ornithosuchids were quadrupedal and facultatively bipedal, meaning they had the ability to walk on two legs for short periods of time...

, but later assigned it to the family Prestosuchidae

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...

, which he constructed in 1966. In 1972, Romer assigned Procerosuchus as a possible member of the family Proterochampsidae

Proterochampsidae

Proterochampsidae is a family of archosauriforms. Proterochampsids may have filled an ecological niche similar to modern crocodiles, and had a general crocodile-like appearance. They lived in what is now South America in the Middle and Late Triassic....

. Krebs (1976) considered it to be a rauisuchid, as did Chatterjee (1985) and Carroll (1988).

Procerosuchus has been suggested to be member of the subfamily Rauisuchinae and the tribe

Tribe (biology)

In biology, a tribe is a taxonomic rank between family and genus. It is sometimes subdivided into subtribes.Some examples include the tribes: Canini, Acalypheae, Hominini, Bombini, and Antidesmeae.-See also:* Biological classification* Rank...

 Rauisuchini. However, the genus has not yet been included in any phylogenetic

Phylogenetics

In biology, phylogenetics is the study of evolutionary relatedness among groups of organisms , which is discovered through molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices...

 analyses of rauisuchians, and its classification remains uncertain. The alpha taxonomy

Alpha taxonomy

Alpha taxonomy is the discipline concerned with finding, describing and naming species of living or fossil organisms. This field is supported by institutions holding collections of these organisms, with relevant data, carefully curated: such institutes include natural history museums, herbaria and...

 of rauisuchians is still debated (the order itself is now considered paraphyletic) and the anatomy of many taxa, including Procerosuchus, has not yet been thoroughly described. Procerosuchus does not seem to belong to a recently identified monophyletic grouping of rauisuchians termed Clade X, which includes poposaurids

Poposauridae

The Poposauridae are a family of large carnivorous archosaurs which lived alongside dinosaurs during the Late Triassic. They are known from fossil remains from North and South America...

 and ctenosauriscids

Ctenosauriscidae

Ctenosauriscidae is an extinct family of pseudosuchian archosaurs within the clade Poposauroidea. Ctenosauriscids existed in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America during the Early Triassic to the Middle Triassic period . All species had large "sails" on their backs...

.

External links

• Procerosuchus 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...