Pedeticosaurus leviseuri (Van Hoepen 1915, QS 606, National Museum in Bloemfontein, South Africa, Early Jurassic) is a tiny basal crocodylomorph preserved as a natural mold. Earlier considered conspecific with Protosuchus or too poorly preserved to distinquish its own species, Pedeticosaurus nests betweenHesperosuchus and the rest of the taxa in the Protosuchus clade (below) in the large reptile tree. The skull was smaller. The forelimbs were more gracile. The metatarsals were shorter relative to the tibia.

Orthosuchus stormbergi (Nash 1968; Early Jurassic 196mya; 60cm in length) is a tiny, long-legged crocodiliform protosuchid. The low flat skull is covered in shallow pits, like living crocs. The upper and lower jaws close with a large gap between them. The choanae are midway betwen the nose and throat.

Protosuchus richardsoni (Brown 1933, 1934) Early Jurassic, 1 m. in length, synonym = Archaeosuchus. Protosuchus was derived from a sister to Dromicosuchus and Yonghesuchus.

Distinct from Dromicosuchus, the skull of Protosuchus had a notch between the premaxilla and maxilla for a large dentary tooth insertion. The antorbital fenestra was greatly reduced as were the temporal and mandibular fenestrae. The posterior mandible was deeper.

The cervicals increased in size anteriorly. The scapula was S-shaped. The forelimbs were two-thirds the length of the hind limbs.

The pelvis was relatively small. The pubis was excluded from the acetabulum. A large calcaneal "heel" protruded posteriorly from the tarsus. Such a heel was analogous to similar heels in the dinosaur Poposaurus and the therapsid Chiniquodon. The metatarsals were all nearly the same length.

Sichuanosuchus shuhanensis (Peng 1995, Wu, Sues and Dong 1997) Early Cretaceous has a low wide skull, a tiny antorbital fenestra subdivided into anterior and posterior openings, the anterior maxillary tooth is a canine and the following teeth have low, chisel-like crowns. The posterior palpebral is larger than the anterior one. The scapula and forelimb specimen appear to be from a larger specimen. Sichuansuchus is a sister to Protosuchus.

Brown B 1933. An Ancestral Crocodile: American Museum Novitiates, n. 638, p. 1-4.

Brown B 1934. A change of names. Science 79:80.

Nash DS 1975. The Morphology and Relationships of a Crocodilian, Orthosuchus stormbergi, from the Upper Triassic of Lesotho. Annals of the South African Museum 67: 227-329.

Peng G 1995. A new protosuchian from the Late Jurassic of Sichuan, China; pp. 63-68 in Sun A. and Wang Y (eds.), Sixth Symposium on Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems, Short Papers. Academia Sinica, Beijing.

van Hoepen ECN 1915. Contributions to the knowledge of the reptiles of the Karroo Formation. 4. A new pseudosuchian from the Orange Free State. Annals of the Transvaal Museum 5:83-87.

Wu X-C, Sues H-D and Dong Z-M 1997. Sichuanosuchus shuhanensis, a new ?Early Cretaceous protosuchian (Archosauria: Crocodyliformes) from Sichuan (China), and the monophyly of Protosuchia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 17:89-103.

wiki/Protosuchus
wiki/Sichuanosuchus
wiki/Orthosuchus