Lagosuchus
Lagosuchus, live and skeletal reconstructions
Lagosuchus is a genus diapsider reptiles from the Middle Triassic of Argentina.
Lagosuchus was only about 30 inches long. The limbs were long and slender; the length of the hind legs surpassed that of the front legs clearly. The shin bone (tibia) was longer than the thigh bone ( femur). From the pelvic bone pubic bone and ilium were extended as the dinosaurs. As for this the foot between the ankle bone ankle bone directed ( Astragalus ) and calcaneus ( calcaneus ) above and tarsal bones ( tarsals ) and metatarsal bones ( metatarsals ) below. The lying towards the body ( proximal ) ends of the tarsal bones are not yet, as with the dinosaurs, closely related to the shinbone ( tibia) connected.
Lagosuchus stood very close together with the related genus Lagerpeton, the origin of the dinosaurs. Since the skull is only very inadequately known (from Lagerpeton one knows only the hind legs ), you can not perform a detailed comparison with early dinosaurs and therefore can not determine the systematic position of Lagosuchus exactly.
The skeleton, as well as footprints of that period, show that the animals were usually quadrupedal ( four-legged ). You could but occasionally quite biped ( two-legged ) have run.