Chroniosuchia

Chroniosuchia Temporal range: Middle Permian–Upper Triassic PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Suchonica
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Reptiliomorpha (?)
Order:	†Chroniosuchia Kuhn, 1970
Subgroups
See text.
Synonyms
Chroniosuchida Tatarinov, 1972

Chroniosuchia is a group of tetrapods that lived from the Middle Permian to Late Triassic in what is now Eastern Europe, Kyrgyzstan,^[1] China and Germany.^[2] Chroniosuchians are often thought to be reptiliomorphs,^[3] but some recent phylogenetic analyses suggest instead that they are stem-tetrapods.^[4] They were all rather short limbed with a strong tail and elongated snout, somewhat resembling modern crocodiles. The group is traditionally considered to be a suborder or order of labyrinthodonts. Chroniosuchians likely had ecological niches as riverside predators, and may have been outcompeted by semiaquatic true reptiles such as phytosaurs in the late Triassic. Most forms bore a heavy armour of scutes along the back, possibly for protection against land born predators like therapsids, or to strengthen the axial skeleton for terrestrial locomotion. Indeed, femoral microanatomy of Chroniosaurus suggests that it was amphibious to terrestrial.^[5]