Doswelliidae

Doswelliidae is a family of carnivore archosauriforms. Doswelliids existed in North and South America during the Middle–Late Triassic period and were among the most derived non-archosaurian archosauriforms. The family was named by R. E. Weems in 1980 and it has been placed in its own suborder, Doswelliina.

The Doswelliidae has long been considered a monospecific family of basal archosauriforms represented by Doswellia kaltenbachi from the Late Triassic of North America. However, a 2011 cladistic analysis recovered Archeopelta, Doswellia and Tarjadia within a monophyletic Doswelliidae. The phylogenetic analysis also indicates that Doswellidae is the closest large monophyletic clade to Archosauria (only the Chinese archosauriform Yonghesuchus nested closer to archosaurs). In 2013, the fourth and fifth genera and species of dosweliids were named, Jaxtasuchus salomoni based on several skeletons found in the Ladinian-age Lower Keuper of Germany, and Ankylosuchus chinlegroupensis based on fragments of four vertebrae, parts of the skull and of a limb bone from the early Carnian Colorado City Formation. Both Ankylosuchus and Jaxtasuchus are more closely related to Doswellia than to more basal doswelliids. A phylogenetic analysis by Ezcurra (2016) recovered Doswelliidae within Proterochampsia, which was found to be the sister taxon of Archosauria. The aquatic Vancleavea was also referred to Doswelliidae.