Apachesaurus

Apachesaurus is an extinct genus of metoposaurid temnospondyls from western North America.

Description and taxonomy


Apachesaurus was described from the Late Triassic (late Norian-Rhaetian) Redonda Formation of eastern New Mexico as a small, diminutive genus of metoposaurid. The small elongate centra were used by Hunt (1993) to consider Apachesaurus a small species of metoposaurid. However, Gee et al. (2017, 2018) demonstrated that centra referred to Apachesaurus are juveniles rather than small adults, concluding that Apachesaurus specimens are juveniles, though they cautioned they could not determine whether these are Anaschisma or a distinct taxon in its own right.