Eohupehsuchus
Sign in to saveEohupehsuchus is a genus of extinct aquatic diapsid from the Upper Spathian (latest Early Triassic) of Hubei Province, located in Central China. The genus is monotypic and belongs to the order Hupehsuchia, whose members are characterized by toothless beak-like snouts, a row of dermal plates along their backs, and aquatic adaptations including paddle-shaped limbs and fusiform bodies with pachyostotic ribs.
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8 sectionsContents
- Discovery and history
- Description and paleobiology
- Skull
- Spine and ribs
- Limbs
- Dermal plates
- Paleoenvironment and paleoecology
- References
Eohupehsuchus is a genus of extinct aquatic diapsid from the Upper Spathian (latest Early Triassic) of Hubei Province, located in Central China. The genus is monotypic and belongs to the order Hupehsuchia, whose members are characterized by toothless beak-like snouts, a row of dermal plates along their backs, and aquatic adaptations including paddle-shaped limbs and fusiform bodies with pachyostotic ribs.
Eohupehsuchus is known only from its holotype, WGSC (Wuhan Centre of Geological Survey, China) V26003. It is the smallest known hupehsuchian along with Nanchangosaurus, measuring about long. Phylogenetic analyses have repeatedly recovered it as the second-most basal member of the Hupehsuchia and as the sister group to the family Hupehsuchidae. A pathology on the left forelimb of the holotype was interpreted by its discoverers as a bite wound from a larger marine reptile, and used to argue an early onset for modern trophic structures in marine ecosystems following the Permian-Triassic mass extinction (see Paleoenvironment and paleoecology).