Kingdom Animalia Clade Crocopoda Clade Eucrocopoda Rank Genus | Class Reptilia Clade Archosauriformes Phylum Chordata | |
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Similar Asperoris, Garjainia, Osmolskina, Ticinosuchus, Shansisuchus | ||
Yarasuchus is an extinct genus of early archosauriform reptiles. It lived during the Anisian stage of the Middle Triassic of India. Being only 2 metres long, it is one of the smallest rauisuchians known. The genus was named and described in 2005 from incomplete fossil material found from the Middle Triassic Yerrapalli Formation, thought to be from two individuals, with one being much more complete and articulated than the other. The type and only species is Y. deccanensis.
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Description
The cervical vertebrae that make up the neck of Yarasuchus are characteristically elongated, while the skull is proportionally small. The genus is also distinguished from other prestosuchids by a delicately built pectoral girdle and a continuous acromion process of the scapula. The neural spines of the vertebrae are high and the paramedian osteoderms are greatly sculptured with a ridge running anteroposteriorly along each one.
Paleobiology
Yarasuchus may have had a facultatively bipedal gait.
Many other vertebrate remains have been found from the Yerrapalli Formation alongside those of Yarasuchus, and would have coexisted with the genus during the Middle Triassic. Remains of the prolacertiform Pamelaria dolichotrachela have been found in close proximity to those of Yarasuchus. Other vertebrate remains include those of the dipnoan Ceratodus, the actinopterygian Saurichthys, the temnospondyl Parotosuchus, and the dicynodonts Rechnisaurus and Wadiasaurus.
Classification
It was originally described as a prestosuchid, but Brusatte et al. (2010) found it to be a poposauroid in a detailed cladistic analysis.