Fossil of Prestosuchus Chiniquensis found in Brazil

Here is news of a really beautiful fossil found recently:

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Brazilian paleontologists have found the near complete fossil of a fearsome predator that roamed the Earth before the dinosaurs.
The 22ft long creature, called Prestosuchus chiniquensis, lived some 238million years ago. It belonged to a family of reptiles called thecodonts and had a large, deep skull with serrated teeth and a long tail.

This is how it may have looked in life:

Weighing 900lbs, the carnivores romated Earth during the Triassic Period 250 to 205 million years ago. Dinosaurs came to dominate from 230million years ago up to their extinction 65million years ago.
The well-preserved creature was found by a team from the Lutheran University of Brazil, in the town of Dona Francisca 160miles from Porto Alegre.

I haven't quoted the article in full.

Link to wiki:
en.wikipedia.org...

Picture of skeleton taken from wiki article. It doesn't look so cute here:


[edit on 13-5-2010 by berenike]

reply to post by berenike


Sweet pics.

Amazing it was so well preserved.

Looks almost like dimetrodon without a sail.

Love how they almost always look to have a cheeky grin in the artists renditions.

They are incredibly primal looking beasts. Here's to finding more.

On the dimetrodon angle, do we know if it was a synapsid?

Originally posted by pablos
reply to post by berenike

 

On the dimetrodon angle, do we know if it was a synapsid?

Ummm.......go to the top of the class for asking the question

This is from the wiki link - does it help?

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Reptilia
Subclass: Diapsida
Infraclass: Archosauromorpha
(unranked): Archosauria
Order: Crurotarsi
Suborder: Rauisuchia
Family: Prestosuchidae
Genus: Prestosuchus
von Huene, 1942

reply to post by berenike


Cheers, that is somewhat helpful.

It seems it is a diapsid, making a completely different family to Dimetrodon.

Diapsids evolved into the modern reptiles, such as crocodiles lizards and snakes. Even birds fit into this family tree. Dinosaurs also were Diapsids.

Synapsids on the other hand evolved into the mammal like reptiles and the mammals.

Sorry, bit of a nerd for this crap. Love the thread mate, get any more of it you know where to stick it.

Cheers,
Pablo

reply to post by pablos


Here's a thread I made a little while ago about the discovery of an Abydosaurus:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

If you do a search you'll probably find quite a few threads on ATS about dinosaurs and their ilk, and probably authored by people far more knowledgeable than me