Thoosuchus
Sign in to saveThoosuchus (meaning "active crocodile") is an extinct genus of basal trematosauroid trematosaurian temnospondyl. Fossils have been found from Russia and date back to the Early Triassic. It is the type genus of the family Thoosuchidae, formerly called the subfamily Thoosuchinae and placed within Benthosuchidae. The benthosuchids were originally composed of the majority of basal trematosaurian forms regarded as the ancestors of the trematosaurids.
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Thoosuchus (meaning "active crocodile") is an extinct genus of basal trematosauroid trematosaurian temnospondyl. Fossils have been found from Russia and date back to the Early Triassic. It is the type genus of the family Thoosuchidae, formerly called the subfamily Thoosuchinae and placed within Benthosuchidae. The benthosuchids were originally composed of the majority of basal trematosaurian forms regarded as the ancestors of the trematosaurids.
== Discovery and naming == Although the genus was first named in 1940, material from one species, E. yakovlevi, was originally tentatively referred to Trematosuchus in 1926. Russian paleontologist Ivan Yefremov [Efremov] named it Thoosuchus "active crocodile" (from Ancient Greek θοός (thoos) "nimble, active" and σοῦχος (soukhos) "crocodile") in 1940, "in view of its obviously more active mode of life in water than the mode of life of Benthosuchus" (page 13).