Shuvosaurus

On the cranial anatomy of Shuvosaurus inexpectatus (Dinosauria: Theropoda).

Archive 2006-01-01 Darren Naish 2006

But in fact, while competing for the same food and water resources, dinosaurs didn't really get to have a say in front of the fearsome crurotarsans such as the predator Postosuchus, the armored Desmatosuchus or the fast two-legged runners Shuvosaurus and Effigia.

Softpedia News - Global 2008

But then, different data doesn’t necessarily = different trees, and now it’s clear that it was a mistake to get so excited about Shuvosaurus as a theropod in the first place.

Archive 2006-01-01 Darren Naish 2006

It now seems quite secure that Shuvosaurus, based on a skull described by Sankar Chatterjee (1993) as ornithomimosaurian, is a close relative of Effigia, so so much for Oli Rauhut’s contention (Rauhut 1997, 2003) that it’s actually a bizarre coelophysoid.

Archive 2006-01-01 Darren Naish 2006

I confess to actually liking Oli’s idea, and an interesting consequence of it is that his inclusion of Shuvosaurus within his phylogenetic analysis of Coelophysoidea ‘forced’ Dilophosaurus away from coelophysids and closer to tetanurans.

Archive 2006-01-01 Darren Naish 2006

As I noted when I reviewed this work (Naish 2003), given that his topology was dependent on his inclusion of Shuvosaurus, it’s especially interesting that other people later found the same topology, but without incorporating this problematical taxon.

Archive 2006-01-01 Darren Naish 2006

Shuvosaurus, a Late Triassic archosaur from the Chinle Group, American Southwest.

Hairy Museum of Natural History 2010