Doswelliidae is a family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 of carnivore

Carnivore

A carnivore meaning 'meat eater' is an organism that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue, whether through predation or scavenging...

 archosauriforms

Archosauriformes

Archosauriformes is a clade of diapsid reptiles that developed from archosauromorph ancestors some time in the Late Permian...

. Doswelliids existed in North

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 and South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 during the Middle–Late Triassic

Triassic

The Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 250 to 200 Mya . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events...

 period and were among the most derived non-archosaurian archosauriforms. The family was named by R. E. Weems in 1980 and it has been placed in its own suborder

Order (biology)

In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...

, Doswelliina. The Doswelliidae has long been considered a monospecific

Monospecificity

In zoology, "monospecific" is an adjective describing a genus which contains only one known species. The term comes from the Greek prefix "μονο-" meaning "single" and Latin "species" meaning "kind" or "type". It is thus of hybrid origin....

 family of basal crurotarsan including Doswellia kaltenbachi

Doswellia

Doswellia is an extinct genus of archosauriform. It has been placed in its own family, Doswellidae, and its own suborder, Doswelliina. It was a terrestrial carnivore that existed in eastern North America during the Carnian stage of the Late Triassic. Fossils have been found from the Poor Farm...

from the Late Triassic

Late Triassic

The Late Triassic is in the geologic timescale the third and final of three epochs of the Triassic period. The corresponding series is known as the Upper Triassic. In the past it was sometimes called the Keuper, after a German lithostratigraphic group that has a roughly corresponding age...

 of North America. However, a recent cladistic

Cladistics

Cladistics is a method of classifying species of organisms into groups called clades, which consist of an ancestor organism and all its descendants . For example, birds, dinosaurs, crocodiles, and all descendants of their most recent common ancestor form a clade...

 analysis published in 2011 recovered Archeopelta

Archeopelta

Archeopelta is an extinct genus of carnivorous archosauriform from the late Middle or early Late Triassic period . It is a doswelliid which lived in what is now southern Brazil. It is known from the holotype CPEZ-239a, which consists of partial skeleton and braincase...

, Doswellia and Tarjadia

Tarjadia

Tarjadia is an extinct genus of Triassic archosauriform. It is known from a single species, T. ruthae, first described in 1998 from the Middle Triassic Los Chañares Formation in Argentina. Partial remains have been found from deposits that are Anisian-Ladinian in age. The genus is known mostly from...

within a monophyletic group of archosauriforms. The phylogenetic analysis also indicates that Doswellidae is the closest large monophyletic clade to Archosaur

Archosaur

Archosaurs are a group of diapsid amniotes whose living representatives consist of modern birds and crocodilians. This group also includes all extinct non-avian dinosaurs, many extinct crocodilian relatives, and pterosaurs. Archosauria, the archosaur clade, is a crown group that includes the most...

ia.