Postosuchus

Postosuchus (Crocodile from Post) was a basal archosaur that lived in what is now North America from the middle to the late Triassic. It was not a dinosaur, having a closer relationship to crocodilians, and was even at a higher level on the food chain than the dinosaurs it lived near and preyed on. In its time it was a top predator. The Rauschia group ruled the world before the advent of dinosaurs.

It gets its name from Post Quarry, a place in Texas where Postosuchus was first discovered.

Postosuchus’s forelimbs were over half the size of its hind legs, this characteristic of short forelimbs can usually be seen in bipedal reptiles. Chatterjee suggested that Postosuchus could walk in an erect stance, since the short forelimbs were used probably only during slow moving locomotion. However, in 1995, Robert Long and Phillip A. Murry claimed that Postosuchus was a stocky quadruped. There is a debate over whether Postosuchus was either a biped or a quadruped as scientists aren’t sure yet. However, some paleontologists suggested that Postosuchus was probably a facultative biped, meaning that it altered between bipedally and quadrupedally. Some early depictions show the Postosuchus stalking around on its hind legs, with its front legs hanging irregularly from their joints as it walked.