New ‘rauisuchian’ fossil material from the lower Elliot Formation of South Africa

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dc.article.end-page189
dc.contributor.authorTolchard, Frederick B
dc.contributor.authorBordy, Emese M
dc.contributor.authorChoiniere, Jonah N
dc.date.accessioned2023-11-23T08:08:00Z
dc.date.available2023-11-23T08:08:00Z
dc.date.issued2023
dc.departmentLibrary
dc.description.abstract‘Rauisuchians’ are a grade of paracrocodylomorph archosaurs that evolved a diversity of body plans and played a key role in ecosystems worldwide throughout the Triassic. They are widely believed to have gone extinct during the end-Triassic mass extinction event though the fossil record of rauisuchians in the latest Triassic is still poorly known. In this study, we describe new rauisuchian fossil remains from the lower Elliot Formation of South Africa. Based on comparative anatomical evidence, we assign these specimens to the pseudosuchian clade Rauisuchidae. The addition of this material to the existing southern African fossil record allows us, along with some new insights into the taxonomic affinities of previously published material, to identify the presence of at least three distinct taxa of rauisuchian in the Norian of southern Africa: two of the clade Rauisuchidae; and one of the clade Poposauroidea. These likely filled the ecological role of apex predators in the Late Triassic of southern Africa. We also provide a revision of the stratigraphic record of ‘rauisuchians’ from the Elliot Formation and show that the existing record of rauisuchians in southern Africa, though among the youngest in the world, does not extend beyond the late Norian. Further exploration of the Elliot Formation and other terrestrial deposits at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary will be needed to assess whether rauisuchians survived until, or even beyond, the end-Triassic mass extinction event.
dc.description.librarianJNC2023
dc.description.sponsorshipGENUS: the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences NRF AOP 118794 and 136526 MND200718544868
dc.facultyLibrary
dc.identifier.issn2410-4418
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/37138
dc.journal.titlePalaeontologia africana
dc.language.isoen
dc.orcid.id0000-0002-1008-0687
dc.publisherEvolutionary Studies Institute
dc.rightsCopyright 2023 the Authors. This is an open-access article published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License (CC BY4.0). To view a copy of the license, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
dc.schoolLibrary
dc.subjectRauisuchidae
dc.subjectLate Triassic
dc.subjectNorian
dc.subjectpalaeoecology
dc.subjectbiostratigraphy
dc.subjectend-Triassic mass extinction
dc.subjectStormberg Group
dc.titleNew ‘rauisuchian’ fossil material from the lower Elliot Formation of South Africa
dc.typeArticle
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