Not to be confused with the flowering plant genus Vanclevea.
Vancleavea
Temporal range: 228–201.3 Ma
PreꞒ
Ꞓ
O
S
D
C
P
T
J
K
Pg
N
Late Triassic
A cast of specimen GR 138
Scientific classification
Domain:
Eukaryota
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Reptilia
Clade:
Archosauromorpha
Clade:
Archosauriformes
Clade:
†Proterochampsia
Family:
†Doswelliidae
Genus:
†Vancleavea Long & Murry, 1995
Type species
†Vancleavea campi
Long & Murry, 1995
Vancleavea is a genus of extinct, armoured, non-archosaurian archosauriforms from the Late Triassic of western North America. The type and only known species is V. campi, named by Robert Long & Phillip A Murry in 1995.[1][2] At that time, the genus was only known from fragmentary bones including osteoderms and vertebrae. However, since then many more fossils have been found, including a pair of nearly complete skeletons discovered in 2002. These finds have shown that members of the genus were bizarre semiaquatic reptiles. Vancleavea individuals had short snouts with large, fang-like teeth, and long bodies with small limbs. They were completely covered with bony plates known as osteoderms, which came in several different varieties distributed around the body. Phylogenetic analyses by professional paleontologists have shown that Vancleavea was an archosauriform, part of the lineage of reptiles that would lead to archosaurs such as dinosaurs and crocodilians. Vancleavea lacks certain traits which are present in most other archosauriforms, most notably the antorbital, mandibular and supratemporal fenestrae, which are weight-saving holes in the skulls of other taxa. However, other features clearly support its archosauriform identity, including a lack of intercentra, the presence of osteoderms, an ossified laterosphenoid, and several adaptations of the femur and ankle bones.[2] In 2016, a new genus of archosauriform, Litorosuchus, was described. This genus resembled both Vancleavea and more typical archosauriforms in different respects, allowing Litorosuchus to act as a transitional fossil linking Vancleavea to less aberrant archosauriforms.[3]
^Long, R. A. & Murry, P. A. (1995). "Late Triassic (Carnian and Norian) tetrapods from the southwestern United States". New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin. 4: 1–254.
^ abCite error: The named reference Nesbitt et al. 2009 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Cite error: The named reference lietal2016 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Vancleavea is a genus of extinct, armoured, non-archosaurian archosauriforms from the Late Triassic of western North America. The type and only known species...
proterochampsids), as well as various other strange reptiles such as Vancleavea and Asperoris. The most successful archosauriforms, and the only members...
doswelliids retain teeth on the pterygoid, on the roof of the mouth. Although Vancleavea had a short and deep skull, most doswelliids had slender and elongated...
the postcranial skeleton that is now assigned to Vancleavea, a definite archosauriform. When Vancleavea and Acallosuchus were distinguished from each other...
Middle Triassic of China, closely related to the morphologically similar Vancleavea. It contains one species, L. somnii. For an archosauriform, Litorosuchus...
waterways there are the phytosaur Machaeroprosopus, the archosauromorph Vancleavea, the amphibians Apachesaurus and Koskinonodon, and the fishes Reticulodus...
nothosaur Litorosuchus L. somnii A semiaquatic archosauriform related to Vancleavea campi Macrocnemus M. fuyuanensis A small basal tanystropheid Nothosaurus...
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