Gorgetosuchus
| Gorgetosuchus Temporal range: Late Triassic
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|---|---|
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Archosauria |
| Clade: | Pseudosuchia |
| Order: | †Aetosauria |
| Family: | † Stagonolepididae
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| Subfamily: | †Desmatosuchinae |
| Genus: | †Gorgetosuchus Heckert et al., 2015 |
| Type species | |
| †Gorgetosuchus pekinensis Heckert et al., 2015
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Gorgetosuchus is an
Discovery
G. pekinensis was named and described by Heckert et al. (2015) on the basis of ten rows of bony plates called
Description
Gorgetosuchus is unique among aetosaurs in having cervical (neck) osteoderms that nearly wrap around the entire neck and are strongly angled to give the neck a hexagonal shape in cross-section. The lateral (side) and paramedian (upper) osteoderms each bear prominent spines. Other aetosaurs such as derived group of aetosaurs.
Classification
Among aetosaurs, Gorgetosuchus closely resembles Lucasuchus and Longosuchus, both of which are desmatosuchines. A
phylogenetic analysis conducted by Heckert et al. (2015) placed Gorgetosuchus close to these taxa as the most basal desmatosuchine, but the results were not statistically well supported. Below is a strict consensus tree from their analysis showing the placement of Gorgetosuchus:[1]
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Gorgetosuchus was also placed as the basal-most member of
Desmatosuchini (traditional desmatosuchines) in an analysis by Parker (2016).[2] However, an analysis by Hoffman et al. (2018), based on an earlier analysis by Schoch & Desojo (2016), placed it within Typothoracinae, closely related to Typothorax and Redondasuchus. Typothoracines and desmatosuchins are known to have a large degree of homoplasy (convergent evolution) in certain osteoderm traits observed in Gorgetosuchus. On the other hand, other skeletal traits strongly diverge between the two groups, so the position of Gorgetosuchus would likely stabilize if more non-osteoderm bones were discovered.[3]
