Doswelliidae

Doswelliidae Temporal range: Middle - Late Triassic
Life restoration Doswellia kaltenbachi, the most well known dosweliid
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	†Proterochampsia
Family:	†Doswelliidae Weems, 1980
Genera
†Ankylosuchus †Archeopelta †Doswellia †Jaxtasuchus †Tarjadia †Vancleavea

Life restoration of Archeopelta arborensis

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.^[1]

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).^[2] 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,^[3] 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.^[4] Both Ankylosuchus and Jaxtasuchus are more closely related to Doswellia than to more basal doswelliids.^[3][4] 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.^[5]

Eucrocopoda

Dorosuchus neoetus Euparkeria capensis (Euparkeriidae) Dongusuchus efremovi Yarasuchus deccanensis  Archosauria  Avemetatarsalia  Pseudosuchia  Phytosauria The rest of Pseudosuchia (incl. Koilamasuchus)  Proterochampsia   Doswelliidae  Vancleavea campi Archeopelta arborensis Tarjadia ruthae Doswellia kaltenbachi Jaxtasuchus salomoni  Proterochampsidae  Proterochampsa barrionuevoi Proterochampsa nodosa Cerritosaurus binsfeldi Tropidosuchus romeri  Rhadinosuchinae  Pseudochampsa ischigualastensis Gualosuchus reigi Chanaresuchus bonapartei Rhadinosuchus gracilis

References

1. R. E. Weems (1980). "An unusual newly discovered archosaur from the Upper Triassic of Virginia, U.S.A.". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series 70 (7): 1–53. doi:10.2307/1006472.
2. Julia B. Desojo, Martin D. Ezcurra, Cesar L. Schultz (2011). "An unusual new archosauriform from the Middle–Late Triassic of southern Brazil and the monophyly of Doswelliidae". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 161 (4): 839–871. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2010.00655.x.
3. Schoch, R. R.; Sues, H. D. (2013). "A new archosauriform reptile from the Middle Triassic (Ladinian) of Germany". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology: 1. doi:10.1080/14772019.2013.781066.
4. Lucas, S.G.; Spielmann, J.A.; Hunt, A.P. (2013). "A new doswelliid archosauromorph from the Upper Triassic of West Texas" (PDF). In Tanner, L.H.; Spielmann, J.A.; and Lucas, S.G. (eds.). The Triassic System. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 61. pp. 382–388.
5. Ezcurra MD. (2016) The phylogenetic relationships of basal archosauromorphs, with an emphasis on the systematics of proterosuchian archosauriforms. PeerJ, 4:e1778