Osteology of the Late Triassic aetosaur Scutarx deltatylus (Archosauria: Pseudosuchia)

1 Division of Resource Management, Petrified Forest National Park, Petrified Forest, Arizona, United States
2 Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.1924v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Paleontology
Keywords
Late Triassic, Chinle Formation, Aetosauria, Petrified Forest, Archosauria, Biostratigraphy
Copyright
© 2016 Parker
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Parker WG. 2016. Osteology of the Late Triassic aetosaur Scutarx deltatylus (Archosauria: Pseudosuchia) PeerJ Preprints 4:e1924v1

Abstract

Aetosaurs are some of the most common fossils collected from the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation of Arizona, especially at the Petrified Forest National Park. Four partial skeletons collected from the park from 2002 through 2009 represent the holotype and referred specimens of Scutarx deltatylus. These specimens include much of the carapace, as well as the vertebral column, and shoulder and pelvic girldles. A partial skull represents the first aetosaur skull recovered from Arizona since the 1930s. Scutarx deltatylus can be distinguished from closely related forms Calyptosuchus wellesi and Adamanasuchus eisenhardtae not only morphologically, but also stratigraphically. Thus, Scutarx deltatylus is potentially an index taxon for the upper part of the Adamanian biozone.

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.