Apachesaurus
Extinct genus of temnospondyls
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Apachesaurus is an extinct genus of metoposaurid temnospondyls from western North America.
| Apachesaurus Temporal range: Late Triassic | |
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| Life restoration | |
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| Koskinonodon perfectus and Apachesaurus gregorii compared to a human | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Tetrapoda |
| Order: | †Temnospondyli |
| Suborder: | †Stereospondyli |
| Family: | †Metoposauridae |
| Genus: | †Apachesaurus |
| Species | |
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Description and taxonomy
Apachesaurus was described from the Late Triassic (late Norian-Rhaetian) Redonda Formation of eastern New Mexico as a small, diminutive genus of metoposaurid. The small elongate centra were used by Hunt (1993) to consider Apachesaurus a small species of metoposaurid.[1] However, Gee et al. (2017, 2018) demonstrated that centra referred to Apachesaurus are juveniles rather than small adults, concluding that Apachesaurus specimens are juveniles, though they cautioned they could not determine whether these are Anaschisma or a distinct taxon in its own right.[2][3]