Scleromochlus

Graphic representation of Scleromochlus

• Scotland

Scleromochlus is a genus of small archosaurs of the Upper Triassic ( Carnian - Norian ) from Scotland. The only way is Scleromochlus taylori.

Its fossil remains have been found for the first time in 1907 in sandstone formations near Lossiemouth in Scotland. There are only imprints of bone fragments, and so only a few morphological details have been preserved. We now know that seven copies.

Scleromochlus was only 23 inches long and gracefully built with long hind legs and short front legs. The skull was relatively large with expansive windows.

Nevertheless, Friedrich von Huene adopted in 1914 that Scleromochlus to gliding was capable and wing membranes possessed. Scleromochlus could have lived on trees and large distances are bridged by gliding. He lived at the same time as the first pterosaurs and may have had with these common ancestors.

In the 1980s and 1990s this assumption was supported by studies of Padian, Paul Sereno and Michael Benton on. Peters, however, presented Scleromochlus to the basal Crocodylomorpha. The systematic position in the system of archosaurs is still not fully understood.