Sep 12, 2025
Machaeroprosopus pristinus, a phytosaur from the Late Triassic of North America.
Phytosaurs are an extinct group of large, mostly semiaquatic Late Triassic archosauriform or basal archosaurian reptiles.
Artwork by Gabriel Ugueto
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Machaeroprosopus pristinus, a phytosaur from the Late Triassic of North America.
Phytosaurs are an extinct group of large, mostly semiaquatic Late Triassic archosauriform or basal archosaurian reptiles.
Artwork by Gabriel Ugueto
A baby phytosaur sunning himself on a fallen log.
Bonus retro version for good measure.
On yesterdays stream we covered the Tiki formation of India, a productive Triassic formation most notable in recent years for it's bonebed of Colossosuchus. This formation was deposited largely during the Carnian, an episode in Earth history known for increased global rainfall.
Subsequently there are lots of flooding events from this period and since we have this from the Tiki formation as well a flooded forest seemed like the best setting for this piece. Also not the baby and juvenile Colossosuchus: the bonebed that preserved them mostly consisted of...
...younger animals so we though if could be cool to show a nursery. Interestingly phytosaurs differ from crocodile in that they have proportionally much shorter snouts as babies. Besides this charismatic megafauna we have a lot of small stuff from here. Based on micro...
fossils the most common animals should actually be small archosaurs, but so far their record isn't good enough to put a name on them. Plants are also known in larger quantities.
Thankfully Julianne Kiely helped with this and even provided a quick little guide to the flora of this formation.
As so often Discord member JW provided the size charts for this stream. take note on the huge temnospondyl from here, a specimen that is now unfortunately lost. Thanks to personal communication with Dr. Sanjukta Chakravorti we were able to get a pretty good estimate.
The Manicouagan Impact, Late Triassic, Quebec, Canada
This impact, involving an asteroid about 5 km long in diameter, is the sixth largest impact in the history of the earth. This piece depicts a Hypsognathus (left) and a Jupijkam (right) witnessing the meteorite impact. Despite being in what is now modern day Nova Scotia, the piece shows the sheer scale of the impact that it can be seen from so far away yet can still tower over the horizon. Nowadays, the impact crater, now known as Lac Manicouagan, can be seen from space and is sometimes called "The eye of Quebec"
Triassic phytosaur!
End of Triassic by Richard Bizley
A phytosaur tooth, possibly Redondasaurus sp. from the Redonda Formation in Quay County, New Mexico, United States. There are currently two species described, Redondasaurus gregorii and Redondasaurus bermani. The genus may or may not be synonymous with Machaeroprosopus.
March Madness: Bracket 7
And we're back with another day of march madness. Today's competitors are a couple of very large archosaurs.
Smilosuchus gregorii is a very large phytosaur measuring upto 23 ft long.
Purussaurus is the largest known caiman measuring between 25 and 30 ft in length.
Which archosaur should move on?
Smilosuchus
Purussaurus