Parasuchus

Parasuchus is an extinct genus of basal phytosaur known from the Late Triassic (late Carnian to early Norian stage) of Telangana and Madhya Pradesh, India. At its most restricted definition, Parasuchus contains a single species, Parasuchus hislopi. Parasuchus hislopi is one of several species belonging to a basal grade of phytosaurs, typified by the genus Paleorhinus. Historically, Paleorhinus has been known from better-described fossils, and many species have been lumped into that genus. Parasuchus hislopi, despite being described earlier than Paleorhinus, was considered an undiagnostic chimera until new neotype fossils were described in the late 1970s. Parasuchus hislopi and the two unambiguously valid species of Paleorhinus (P. bransoni and P. angustifrons) are all closely related; some authors have historically described them all under the species Paleorhinus, while others place the two Paleorhinus species into Parasuchus according to the principle of priority.

==History== The name Parasuchus was first used by Thomas Henry Huxley (1870) in a faunal list. Since a diagnosis wasn't provided, it would have been considered a nomen nudum at the time. Richard Lydekker (1885) formally described and named P. hislopi, and proposed the family name Parasuchidae. However, Lydekker's description was based on a chimeric syntype, combining fossils from multiple unrelated reptiles: a rhynchosaurian basicranium mixed with the partial snout of a phytosaur, scutes and some teeth. Friedrich von Huene (1940) identified the basicranium as belonging to Paradapedon huxleyi (now known as Hyperodapedon huxleyi) and the phytosaurian material to a newly named species, "aff." Brachysuchus maleriensis. Later, Edwin Harris Colbert (1958) designated all the Indian parasuchian material as Phytosaurus maleriensis while Gregory (1962) considered the material undiagnostic.