Prestosuchus was named by well known German paleontologist Friedrich von Huene in 1942. He discovered the fossil near Sao Pedro do Sul in Brazil in 1938, thus explaining how a German scientist was able to name a fossil from half a world away during the height of World War II in Europe. Von Huene named the genus for Brazilian paleontologist Vincento Prestes de Almeida who was a self taught scientist. The paper initially describing Prestosuchus does not appear online and the first paper recording the name at all in the Biodiversity Heritage Library is from 1957 (it is mentioned in an article on Triassic footprints in New Jersey). More modern papers do exist and are more entertaining for our purposes though. These include a discussion of the braincase from Mastrantonio et al. (2013) that uses the complete braincase to assess phylogenetic relationships with other Rauisuchians and archosaurs in general. The paper concludes that there are still phylogenetic issues to be worked out but that Rauisuchians are closer to crocodylomorphs than they are to aetosaurs and phytosaurs. Liparini and Schultz (2013) move away from the brain to discuss the muscles of the thigh that appeared to be rather unique. One of the reasons that the thigh muscles in particular were important in discussions of locomotion of Prestosuchus is that the same muscles in Poposaurus, which is a bipedal pseudosuchian archosaur, were very well adapted for bipedality by being shortened despite having the same general arrangement of pillar-erect gait as other pseudosuchian and Rauisuchian animals. There are a number of other papers (Prestosuchus is very well studied and written on) but these two are plenty for one day as they are rather in depth.
Today's papers:
STL Science Center
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