A new pseudosuchian archosaur, gen. et sp. nov., from the Middle Triassic Manda Beds of Tanzania.

The Manda Beds of southwest Tanzania have yielded key insights into the early evolutionary radiation of archosaurian reptiles. Many key archosaur specimens were collected from the Manda Beds in the 1930s and 1960s, but until recently, few of these had been formally published. Here, we describe an archosaur specimen collected in 1963 which has previously been referred to informally as . We recognize this specimen as the type of a new taxon, gen. et sp. nov. The holotype and only known specimen of comprises a partial skull of large size (greater than 75 cm inferred length), lower jaws and fragments of the postcranium, including three anterior cervical vertebrae and a nearly complete left manus. is characterized by several cranial autapomorphies that allow it to be distinguished with confidence from all other Manda Beds archosaurs, with the possible exception of for which comparisons are highly constrained due to very limited overlapping material. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that is an early diverging pseudosuchian, but more precise resolution is hampered by missing data. is one of the largest known pseudosuchians recovered to date from the Middle Triassic.