Welcome to Aetosauroides
Name Definition
like Aetosaurus
Name Given By
R. M. Casamiquela in 1960
Location
Santa Maria Formation of Brazil and Ischigualasto Formation of Argentina
Classification
Reptilia, Pseudosuchia, Suchia, Aetosauria
Size
around 0.5 meters tall (1.6 feet tall), estimated to be around 2.4 meters long (7.87 ft.)
Temporal Range
Carnian - Norian of the late Triassic, around 231.4 - 225.9 million years ago
Ecological niche
small armored herbivore
Species/Sub Species
A. scagliai
Diet
Like many other aetosaurs, Aetosauroides most likely consumed low-lying plants like ferns
Introduction
Aetosauroides is a genus of aetosaurian reptiles that lived in Argentina and Brazil during the late Triassic period. Similar to Aetobarbakinoides and Stagonolepis, Aetosauroides is one of oldest aetosaurs known in the fossil record. Aetosauroides was in fact deemed synonymous with Stagonolepis, most likely because of the similar age comparison, though the general view of these two is that they are more likely to be separate genera. This started from 1996 and ended eventually since there were quite some morphological features differing the two genera from each other including the fact that Aetosauroides does not have maxillae that touch the nostrils. Sharing the same squat position, osteoderm armor, and herbivorous diet like most aetosaurs, Aetosauroides would have been one of the more armed herbivores in its environment, though Aetosauroides is not the only aetosaur known from South America, the others being Neoaetosauroides (meaning young Aetosauroides), Chilenosuchus (named after Chile), and Aetobarbakinoides. Though originally 3 species of Aetosauroides were named, two of them, A. subsulcatus and A. inhamandensis, were made synonymous with the type species A. scagliai. A phylogenetic examination made by Julia B. Desojo, Martin D. Ezcurra and Edio E. Kischlat in 2012 shows that Aetosauroides is not in the big aetosaurian family Stagonolepididae, and Stagonolepididae and Aetosauria are not equal classification ranks. If this is true, Aetosauroides will have been the first aetosaur to have been placed out of the Stagonolepididae family, making it a basalmost aetosaur. In the Ischigualasto Formation, Aetosauroides scagliai lived with many primitive saurischian dinosaurs, the majority being herrerasaurids as well as the theropod Eodromaeus. There were also many archosauromorphs and archosaurs including the apex predator Saurosuchus and the dinosauriform herbivore Pisanosaurus. Synapsids include Ischigualastia, Chiniquodon, etc. For the Santa Maria Formation, Aetosauroides lived with fellow aetosaur Aetobarbakinoides, some rauisuchians and loricatans, archosauromorphs, and primitive dinosaurs.