https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5999-5722
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Abstract
The Middle Triassic uppermost Omingonde Formation of Namibia records a fossil tetrapod fauna including stahleckeriid dicynodonts and probainognathian and traversodontid cynodonts, similar to other contemporary Gondwanan deposits. GSN F382 is a large predatory ‘rauisuchian’ archosaur from the uppermost Omingonde Formation that was originally identified as an erythrosuchid archosauriform. In this study, we provide a detailed anatomical description and phylogenetic analysis of the specimen and diagnose it as a new taxon, Etjosuchus recurvidens. Etjosuchus is a non-crocodylomorph loricatan, branching earlier than Rauisuchidae and Crocodylomorpha. The addition of this large-bodied carnivorous pseudosuchian archosaur to the uppermost Omingonde tetrapod assemblage reinforces its faunal similarity to other Middle to Late Triassic Gondwanan ecosystems such as those in the Santa Maria Formation of Brazil, the Chañares Formation of Argentina and the Manda Beds of Tanzania.
http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:F5035597-24E0-4DA5-B89D-D3CF8851A8FF
Acknowledgements
We thank Annelise Crean and Paul October from the Iziko South African Museum for their help in the excavation; Levi Sakaria from the Namibian Geological Survey for preparing the specimen; and Anne Westoby for drafting and . For their logistical support we acknowledge the Iziko South African Museum, the Geological Survey of Namibia (in particular Gabi Schneider and Wulf Hegenberger) and NAMCOR (Roy Miller). For generous financial support we are grateful to the Namibian Oil Producers Association and the National Research Foundation of South Africa. We thank the reviewers, Julia Desojo and Richard Butler, for their detailed and valuable feedback, which has helped us to greatly improve the quality of this paper. The support of the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (CoE-Pal) towards this research is hereby acknowledged (for their role in funding FBT). Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the authors and are not necessarily to be attributed to the CoE. JNC was funded by NRF African Origins Platform grants 98800 and 118794.
Supplemental material
Supplementary material for this article can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2021.1931501.
Associate Editor: Paul Barrett