Doswellia kaltenbachi

Doswellia Temporal range: Late Triassic, 220 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Life restoration of Doswellia kaltenbachi
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	†Proterochampsia
Family:	†Doswelliidae
Genus:	†Doswellia
Type species
Doswellia kaltenbachi Weems, 1980
Species
†D. kaltenbachi Weems, 1980 †D. sixmilensis Heckert et al., 2012

Doswellia is an extinct genus of archosauriform from the Late Triassic of North America. It belongs to the family Doswelliidae, which also includes the genera Archeopelta and Tarjadia from South America. Doswellia was a terrestrial carnivore that reached a length of 2 m (7 ft) and lived during the Carnian stage of the Late Triassic. It possesses many unusual features including a wide, flattened head with narrow jaws and a box-like rib cage surrounded by many rows of bony plates. The type species Doswellia kaltenbachi was named in 1980 from fossils found within the Poor Farm Member of the Falling Creek Formation in Virginia. The formation, which is found in the Taylorsville Basin, is part of the larger Newark Supergroup. Doswellia is named after Doswell, the town from which remains have been found. A second species called D. sixmilensis was described in 2012 from the Bluewater Creek Formation of the Chinle Group in New Mexico.

Doswellia possesses many highly derived features in its skeleton. The skull is low and elongated with a narrow snout and wide temporal region behind the eye sockets. The temporal region is unusual in that it is euryapsid, which means that the lower of the two temporal holes on either side of the skull has closed. The jugal bone has expanded into the region the lower temporal opening would normally occupy. Paired squamosal bones extend beyond the skull's back margin to form small horn-like projections. The skull of Doswellia lacks several bones found in other archosauriforms, including the postfrontals, tabulars, and postparietals.