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Some archosaurs, such as birds, are secondarily toothless. Antorbital fenestrae reduced the weight of the skull, which was relatively large in early archosaurs, rather like that of modern crocodilians. Mandibular fenestrae may also have reduced the weight of the jaw in some forms.
Archosaurus (meaning "ruling lizard") is an extinct genus of carnivorous proterosuchid archosauriform reptile. [1] Its fossils are dated to the latest Permian of Russia and Poland , it is one of the earliest known archosauriforms.
An antorbital fenestra (plural: fenestrae) is an opening in the skull that is in front of the eye sockets. This skull character is largely associated with archosauriforms, first appearing during the Triassic Period. Among extant archosaurs, birds still possess antorbital fenestrae, whereas crocodylians have lost them. The loss in crocodylians ...
Archosauriformes (Greek for 'ruling lizards', and Latin for 'form') is a clade of diapsid reptiles encompassing archosaurs and some of their close relatives. It was defined by Jacques Gauthier (1994) as the clade stemming from the last common ancestor of Proterosuchidae and Archosauria. [3]
Several features indicate that Smok is an archosaur, including serrated teeth, a contact between the jugal and quadratojugal bones at the back of the skull, a hole in front of the eye socket called the antorbital fenestra, maxillae bones in the upper jaw that connect along their palatal processes, and a rounded projection on the upper part of ...
The lower jaw typically carried 5 or 6 teeth, and had a toothless beak on the end. [2] The dentary was about half the length of the lower jaw, with the front portion being toothless and covered by a horny sheath. [2] Behind the dentary was a moderately large mandibular fenestra. Individuals of Desmatosuchus were heavily armored.
Traditionally, the order Thecodontia Owen, 1859 was divided into four suborders, the Proterosuchia (early primitive forms, another paraphyletic assemblage), Phytosauria (large crocodile-like semi-aquatic animals), the Aetosauria (armoured herbivores), and the Pseudosuchia, a wastebasket taxon intended to be paraphyletic to all later archosaurs (see e.g., Alfred Sherwood Romer's Vertebrate ...
Extinct archosaurs include non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and extinct relatives of crocodilians. Modern paleontologists define Archosauria as a crown group that includes the most recent common ancestor of living birds and crocodilians, and all of its descendants.