Panthasaurus Explained

Panthasaurus is an extinct genus of large temnospondyl belonging to the family Metoposauridae that lived in India during the Late Triassic (Norian) of central India. It contains one species, Panthasaurus maleriensis from the Lower Maleri Formation of India.

Taxonomy

Metoposaurus maleriensis was coined by Chowdbury (1965) for metoposaurid remains from the Maleri Formation in the Pranhita–Godavari Basin of eastern India.^[1] Later, Hunt (1993) transferred the species to the genus Buettneria,^[2] which was followed by Sulej (2002).^[3]

In a paper published in 2018, Chakravorti and Sengupta concluded that specimens of Metoposaurus maleriensis formed a morphospace and morphotype distinct from metoposaurids found in Laurasia. They erected a new genus, Panthasaurus, for M. maleriensis.^[4]

See also

• Triassic–Jurassic extinction event
• Timeline of paleontology

Notes and References

1. Chowdhury . T.R. . 1965 . A new metoposauroid amphibian from the Upper Triassic Maleri Formation of Central India . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B . 250 . 761 . 1–52. 10.1098/rstb.1965.0019 . 1965RSPTB.250....1C . free .
2. Book: Hunt, A.P. . 1993 . Revision of the Metoposauridae (Amphibia: Temnospondyli) and description of a new genus from Western North America . M. . Morales . Aspects of Mesozoic Geology and Paleontology of the Colorado Plateau . Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin . 59 . 67–97.
3. Sulej . T. . 2002 . Species discrimination of the Late Triassic temnospondyl amphibian Metoposaurus diagnosticus . Acta Palaeontologica Polonica . 47 . 3 . 535–546 .
4. S. . Chakravorti . D.P. . Sengupta . 2018 . Taxonomy, morphometry and morphospace of cranial bones of Panthasaurus gen. nov. maleriensis from the Late Triassic of India . Journal of Iberian Geology . 45 . 2 . 317–340 . 10.1007/s41513-018-0083-1. 133977267 .