Ankistrodon

Not to be confused with the snake genus Agkistrodon.

Ankistrodon is an extinct genus of archosauriform known from the Early Triassic Panchet Formation of India. First thought to be a theropod dinosaur, it was later determined to be a proterosuchid. The type species is A. indicus, described by prolific British zoologist Thomas Henry Huxley in 1865.^[1] One authority in the 1970s classified Ankistrodon as a senior synonym of Proterosuchus.^[2] Ezcurra (2023) found Ankistrodon to be a nomen dubium, as the teeth are indistinguishable from those of Proterosuchus. A second Indian proterosuchid from the same formation, Samsarasuchus, was also described in the same study, making it the only known valid proterosuchid from India.^[3]

Ankistrodon Temporal range: Early Triassic, 251.9–247.2 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Holotype in (A) lateral and (B) posterior views, with (C) a cross section of a tooth
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	Archosauromorpha
Clade:	Archosauriformes
Family:	†Proterosuchidae
Genus:	†Ankistrodon Huxley, 1865
Type species
†Ankistrodon indicus Huxley, 1865
Synonyms
Epicampodon Lydekker, 1885 Epicampodon indicus (Huxley, 1865) Lydekker, 1885 Thecodontosaurus indicus (Huxley, 1865) Huene, 1908 Chasmatosaurus indicus (Huxley, 1865) Huene, 1942

References

1. T. H. Huxley. 1865. On a collection of vertebrate fossils from the Panchet rocks, Ranigunj, Bengal. Palaeontologia Indica 4:1-24
2. Romer, A.S. (1972). "The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. XVI. Thecodont classification". Breviora. 395: 1–24.
3. Ezcurra, Martín D.; Bandyopadhyay, Saswati; Sengupta, Dhurjati P.; Sen, Kasturi; Sennikov, Andrey G.; Sookias, Roland B.; Nesbitt, Sterling J.; Butler, Richard J. (25 October 2023). "A new archosauriform species from the Panchet Formation of India and the diversification of Proterosuchidae after the end-Permian mass extinction". Royal Society Open Science. 10 (10). Bibcode:2023RSOS...1030387E. doi:10.1098/rsos.230387. ISSN 2054-5703. PMC 10598453. PMID 37885992.

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