6.7" Fossil Phytosaur Jaw Section With Metal Stand - Arizona

Fossil Phytosaur Jaw Section With Metal Stand - Arizona #214259

This is a beautifully preserved, 6.7" wide Phytosaur jaw section that was collected from the Upper Triassic-aged Chinle Formation of Arizona. The specimen shows detailed bone preservation and partial teeth sockets. It sits nicely on the accompanied custom metal display stand.

There are a variety of phytosaurids that come from this location, making it difficult to conclusively identify isolated bones to a specific genus.

There are multiple repaired cracks through this jaw where it was found in pieces within the ground. However, the cracks are quite clean, only requiring small spots of gap fill restoration where bone fragments chipped away.

Phytosaurs are members of the order Phytosauria. These were semiaquatic, crocodile-like reptiles characterized by long snouts, conical teeth, short legs and long, low slung bodies. They had skin armored with scale like scutes. It is not clearly understood when Phytosaurus evolved. A number of apparently antecedent species have been found in the fossil record but their relationship to Phytosaurs is still being debated. Phytosaurus disappears from the fossil record during the Triassic- Jurassic Extinction, about 200 million years ago.

An artists reconstruction of a Phytosaur. By Nobu Tamura

Generally, Phytosaurs looks like modern crocodilian. It had a long snout, a mouth with conical teeth, short legs, long body with a long, heavy tail and thick armored skin. Some species had longer, thinner snouts with thin conical teeth for catching fish, while others had comparatively shorter, wider snouts with conical teeth in the front and ripping teeth in the back of the mouth. These were likely ambush hunters that snatched prey at the water’s edge, much like modern crocodiles. The longest known Phytosaur was 39 feet long and would have been about as tall as a human at the top of its back. Unlike modern Crocodilians, whose nostrils are at the end of their snouts, Phytosauria had their nostrils at the base of their snouts just above, or at the same level as their eyes. Phytosaurs are not related to modern Crocodilians. The similarities are an example of parallel evolution. This is when two different animals develop similar characteristics and attributes without a common ancestor.

Phytosaurs were nearly globally distributed. The result is phytosaur fossils have been found in Europe, North America, India, Thailand, Brazil, Greenland and even Antarctica.