Pseudosuchia

From EvoWiki

(Redirected from Pseudosuchian)
Jump to: navigation, search

Pseudosuchia is an anachronistic taxon delimited by Zittel in 1890. It has been redefined by Gauthier in 1984 such that Pseudosuchia is the common ancestor of proto-crocodilians, and all descendants thereof. However, the term has largely been precluded by Sereno's cladistic analysis of Archosauromorpha (1991) in which the various proto-crocodilian "pseudosuchian" lineages have been unified as Crurotarsi, on the basis of their ankle morphology. The name is best discontinued, although one could argue for using Pseudosuchia to delimit the parent clade of Crurotarsi and the sister group thereto.

JGK

Personal tools