Maura River Notochampsa (Jurassic to of Zimbabwe)

Where: Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe (16.2° S, 30.1° E: paleocoordinates 32.1° S, 8.7° E)

• coordinate estimated from map

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Forest Sandstone Formation, Hettangian to Hettangian (201.3 - 190.8 Ma)

• "these deposits are considered coeval with the upper part of the late Triassic Elliot Formation ("Red Beds") of South Africa."

Environment/lithology: terrestrial; sandstone

• "fossils from this locality...are variably coated with the black nodular crust of manganese-rich material"

Size class: macrofossils

• vertebral centra, osteoderms, coracoid, skull

Collection methods: National Museum, Bulawayo collection

Primary reference: M. A. Raath. 1981. A protosuchid crocodilian from the Forest Sandstone Formation (Upper Karoo) of Zimbabwe. Palaeontologica Africana 24:169-174 [M. Carrano/M. Oreska]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 99570: authorized by Matthew Carrano, entered by Matthew Oreska on 16.11.2010

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• "Wherever these crocodilians are found they are associated with a fauna consisting predominantly of medium-sized prosauropods (cf. Massopondylus). In a few places tritylodontid and tritheledontid cynodonts, rare morganucodontid mammals (cf. Erythrotherium, Megazostrodon) and coelurosaurian theropods (Syntarsus) have been recovered from a similar stratigraphic horizon."
Show authors, comments, and common names
Reptilia
 Loricata - Notochampsidae
Notochampsa sp.
Notochampsa sp. Broom 1904 crocodilian
QG 49 "much of the skeleton"