Phytosaur

Phytosaurs are an extinct group of large semi-aquatic Upper Triassic archosaurs. 

Phytosaurs were long-snouted and heavily armoured, bearing a remarkable resemblance to modern crocodiles in size, appearance, and lifestyle.Benton M.J. 1990. The reign of the reptiles. Crescent, New York. p75 This is an example of convergence or parallel evolution. 

The name 'phytosaur' means 'plant reptile': the first fossils of phytosaurs were mistakenly thought to belong to plant eaters. The sharp teeth in phytosaur jaws clearly show they were predators.

Although phytosaurs were not true crocodilians, they were more closely related to the crocodilians than to other modern reptiles.Jones, Andrew S.; Butler, Richard J. 2018. A new phylogenetic analysis of Phytosauria (Archosauria: Pseudosuchia) with the application of continuous and geometric morphometric character coding. PeerJ. 6: e5901.  Crocodiles did not become phytosaur-like until the Lower Jurassic. "Consensus generally places phytosaurs as basal crurotarsans, possibly the basal-most group".Brusatte, Stephen L. et al 2010. The higher-level phylogeny of Archosauria (Tetrapoda: Diapsida). Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 8: 1, 347. 

Phytosaurs had a nearly global distribution. Fossils have been recovered from Europe, North America, India, Morocco, Thailand, Brazil and Madagascar.

 References 

Category:Archosaurs
Category:Triassic
Category:Fossils