Episode 142 - Phytosaurs

Take a walk along the waterways of the Late Triassic, and you could easily think it was a world full of crocodiles! But in fact, those are not crocs, but phytosaurs, a group of predatory reptiles that represent not only one of the oldest groups of carnivorous reptiles to achieve a near-global distribution, but also one of evolution's most famous cases of convergent evolution. So, what features did phytosaurs share with crocs? Where did they differ? And just how croc-like were their lifestyles? Listen in and find out!

In the news: dinosaur belly buttons, tiny frogs, snake venom, and giant dwarf crocs.

Time markers:
Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00
News: 00:06:00
Main discussion, Part 1: 00:40:30
Main discussion, Part 2: 01:11:00
Patron question: 01:46:30

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The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome.

[lucybeasinger]

i’m very happy y’all have talked about this group

[Alberad]

Thank you very much for this interesting upload! BTW regarding snakes & scavenging: via a film docu, I had to learn that brown snakes, brought onto a small island accidentally by humans, successfully resorted to garbage plunderers, even learned to open trash bags, after they had eaten all the birds in the forest. One could see them swallowing thrown away sausages there! Maybe soon they will develop a voice, allowing them to ask for some mustard ;-)

[Kyle_Schaff]

I named my fuecoco “Phyto” because you guys taught me about this group. Kinda sounds like “Fido” which is great

[cenotariat]

Aw yis!! I've been waiting for this one! Such a cool group of animals.

[inept_]

I propose the collective noun for Phytosaurs should be 'foliage', not only do you get the alliteration, but it also ties into the origin of the name

[stuchly]

I had no idea that the nostril position of phytosaurs was caused by most of their upper jaw being formed by the premaxilla.

Kind of makes me think back to the stuff Parasaurolophus had going on with its face in comparison with other hardosaurs.

[wcdeich]

Bunostegos were parareptiles with a fairly upright stance. Eudibamus cursoris were parareptiles that may have even been able to run bipedally. Also tracks in Texas suggest the stem mammal Dimetrodon may have been capable of a high walk. So, I think it is not too hard to say a high walk has evolved conveniently multiple times. So whether the high walk is ancestral to all of Archosauromorpha, or Phytosaurs conveniently evolved it, it seems very easy to believe some Phytosaurs could do a high walk.

[wcdeich]

I tried to google mesorinosuchus to see if there was at least a photo from before the skull was destroyed but could not find anything :(

[wariostash]

A group of phytosaurs is a club or arena. Phyt club

[ZJTG]

Yall just be thinking of anything now and doing a video on it