Protosuchia Temporal range: Late Triassic - Late Cretaceous
A skeleton of Protosuchus richardsoni in the American Museum of Natural History
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	Archosauria
Clade:	Pseudosuchia
Clade:	Crocodylomorpha
Clade:	Crocodyliformes
Informal group:	†Protosuchia Mook, 1934
Subgroups
See text.

Protosuchia is a group of extinct Mesozoic crocodyliforms. They were small in size (~1 meter in length) and terrestrial. In phylogenetic terms, Protosuchia is considered an informal group because it is a grade of basal crocodyliforms, not a true clade.

Classification

Recent phylogenetic analyses have not supported Protosuchia as a natural group. However, two studies found a clade of Late Triassic-Early Jurassic animals:^[1][2]

• Edentosuchus
• Hemiprotosuchus
• Orthosuchus
• Protosuchus

Both of these studies also found a clade more closely related to Hsisosuchus and Mesoeucrocodylia consisting of Late Jurassic-Late Cretaceous genera:^[1][2]

• Neuquensuchus
• Shantungosuchus
• Sichuanosuchus
• Zosuchus

However, other possible protosuchians from the Late Cretaceous of China-Mongolia, the Gobiosuchidae (Gobiosuchus and Zaraasuchus), have been found to be either intermediate between these two clades,^[1] or members of the Sichuanosuchus clade.^[2] There is also another family of Late Jurassic-Late Cretaceous genera, the Shartegosuchidae (e.g. Kyasuchus, Shartegosuchus and Nominosuchus).

Below is a cladogram from Fiorelli and Calvo (2007).^[2] Protosuchians are marked by the green bracket.

References

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