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Description
So uh, I made this thing. Amazingly enough, it took me a month short of a year to make (in contrast to the Kem Kem Beds chart, which took me like, a little over a month? I need to update it someday anyways...). Since no one really bothered to make good skeletals or other references for a lot of these animals, if there was any at all, a whole bunch of these had to be made from scratch. And after loads of finishing, critique, revisions, some side stuff, and sacrifice of homework time, I managed to finish creating all the skeletals/schematics needed to make this chart (left out some stuff but shhhh).

The Elliot Formation is a geological formation in southern Africa that has produced (and continues to) numerous fossils of dinosaurs, many other animals, and the occasional plants in South Africa and Lesotho alike. Spanning the Late Triassic to the Early Jurassic (Norian to Sinemurian), the formation is split into the lower Elliot Formation and upper Elliot Formation (which will be abbreviated to lEF and uEF respectively from now on), the former spanning the Norian to Rhaetian of the Late Triassic, while the latter spans the Hettangian to Sinemurian of the Early Jurassic. While both members were floodplains with rivers and lakes, their depositional styles are different: the lEF was a system of permanent, meandering rivers in a humid to semi-arid climate, while the uEF was a more unpredictable environment, with ephermeral water sources and flash floods in an increasingly semi-arid climate that intensified throughout the formation, until it led to a massive desert environment in the overlying Clarens Formation.

The lEF preserves chigutisaurids, the large dicynodont Pentasaurus, the cynodonts Scalenodontoides (which is pretty damn huge) and Elliotherium, putative 'rauisuchians' that might've resembled Fasolasuchus, a lot of sauropodomorphs, many which are unpublished or are in need of a redescription, and intermediate theropods. The uEF preserves... well, what you can see here. A much more varied fauna than back in the formation's Triassic days, and indeed it probably is the most diverse (terrestrial) vertebrate fauna of the Early Jurassic, although it's unlikely that many of these coexisted at the same time as noted in the image. The uEF also has a fair amount of preserved invertebrates like clam shrimps, ostracods, putative crayfish, scarab beetles, intermediate beetles that bore holes in bones like dermestids, termites, and mayflies, and some flora (Agathoxylon, Otozamites, horsetails, ferns belonging to Matoniaceae, etc.).

And I guess I'll get to the vertebrates now...

Megazostrodon rudnerae: A small rare mammaliaform, it appears to have been insectivorous, foraging on ground or climbing trees and stumps.

Erythrotherium parringtoni: Another small mammaliform related to the British Morganucodon, it was probably taking the same niche as Megazostrodon in tiny insectivores.

Semionotidae indet. (= Semionotus capensis?; BPI collections): While not formally described as of yet, the known material appears to have been misidentified as a dinosaur initially, but was subsequently reassigned as a actinopterygian . American paleontologist Paul E. Olsen has suggested in the blogpost's comments that it belongs to a semionotid, perhaps Semionotus itself, and I follow this interpretation here. Since Semionotus capensis, the only species of Semionotus from South Africa, is present in both the underlying Molteno Formation and the overlying Clarens Formation, it is possible that this specimen belongs to this species, which can be inferred to be present in the uEF based on its temporal range.

Clevosaurus sp.: A small clevosaur, it was probably similar to tuataras in life appearance, and had an omnivorous or carnivorous diet, its jaws acting in a scissor-like fashion. Of note for this particular specimen is that it appears to be close to identical to the Nova Scotian C. bairdi and the Chinese C. mcgilli, aside from a slightly more gracile skull. This shows one member of the uEF fauna that is shared with other formations from different parts of the globe.

Diarthrognathus broomi: Part of the upper Elliot original tritheledontid trio alongside Pachygenelus and Tritheledon, it is the smallest of three. It was probably insectivorous, and probably fossorial like Pachygenelus. It appears to have survived into the younger Clarens Formation with Pachygenelus and a few other animals.

cf. Ceratodus sp.: Another undescribed fish, yay. Tooth plates of these lungfish appear to be fairly common, and associated partial skeletons have been mentioned in literature. Being lungfish, they should've been good at surviving through the dry periods of the uEF like modern day Queensland lungfish, although not to the extent of cocoon-generating African lungfish that inhabit the same continent today. I scaled it off after C. kannemeyeri from the underlying Molteno Formation.

Pachygenelus monus: A fairly long-snouted tritheledontid, it is the second most common uEF cynodont behind Tritylodon. Burrow casts from the formation have been attributed to this taxon, being too large to belong to Tritylodon. It is among the few uEF taxa to be found in the younger Clarens Formation as well. Fossils of this genus have been found in Nova Scotia of Canada as well.

Tritheledon riconoi: The largest and rarest of the uEF tritheledontids, it is also the only taxon that appears to have went extinct before the Clarens Formation. Its diet may have been similar to that of Diarthrognathus and Pachygenelus, although due to larger size it may have also targeted smaller vertebrates alongside insects and other invertebrates.

Tritylodon longaevus: A large herbivorous cynodont, it is the most common cynodont in the uEF, with hundreds of specimens being discovered, and even having the Tritylodon Acme Zone named after it, located in the middle of the uEF. I talk about it in a little more detail here .

Australochelys africanus: A seemingly rare turtle only known from a single skull found in the Tritylodon Acme Zone, it is closely related to Palaeochersis of the Triassic Los Colorados Formation. Who knows about the diet, figure it out for yourself.

Diademodontidae indet.: The largest cynodont in the uEF, this guy is what you'd call a relic taxon, being a member of an otherwise Middle Triassic to Late Triassic family. It was the last survivor of one of the two major branches of Eucynodontia, that being the huge-bodied cynognathians. While Cynognathus is the outlier of the group as a carnivore, the rest (like Diademodon and traversodontids) were herbivores or omnivores.

Dracovenator regenti: The southern copycat of Dilophosaurus, it represents the larger ends of the rare theropod fauna in the uEF. Footprints from the uppermost Elliot Formation in Lesotho have been very tentatively assigned to this species based on size, extending its paleogeographic range. It is possible that Kayentapus ambrokholohali also belongs to an exceptionally large Dracovenator individual, although it could be a different dilophosaurid genus or, as its description suggested, an allosaurid-like theropod.

Orthosuchus stormbergi: A small crocodyliform restricted to the uppermost Elliot Formation, it was a terrestrial predator, probably hunting the cynodonts that it coexisted with.

Protosuchus haughtoni: The most common crocodyliform in the uEF, it more or less spans the entire uEF, and is found in both South Africa and Lesotho. This genus is also found in the contemporary Kayenta Formation of southwestern America and the Canadian Nova Scotia.

Litargosuchus leptorhyncus: If you thought Terrestrisuchus was the lankiest then this 'sphenosuchian' might just break the records. Originally described as a specimen of the now-dubious 'Pedeticosaurus' in 1988, it was dubbed as a new genus in 2002 alongside Kayentasuchus.

Sphenosuchus acutus: Yeah, I guess this dude is pretty lanky too. Thanks to its larger size compared to the other uEF crocodylomorphs, it could tackle prey larger than cynodonts, like heterodontosaurids.

Sauropodiformes indet. (MHNH.F.LES400): One of the many sauropodomorphs in the uEF, this sauropodiform is from the Ha Noosi locality of Lesotho, the same site that produced the Abrictosaurus holotype. First mentioned in a 2014 SVP meeting abstract , it was later described in a 2016 thesis , describing the specimen in full detail. It is known from a well-preserved postcranium (although majorly distorted in many areas), only lacking most of the right leg, most of the pelvis, sacrals, and caudals. It appears to be on the basal side of things, my personal opinion being that it sits somewhere near where Mussaurus is on the sauropodomorph tree.

Pegomastax africana: A tiny heterodontosaurid that unfortunately has been made popular by ARK, it has a robust dentary and predentary compared to other heterodontosaurs, which is likely a specialized adaptation for feeding.

Abrictosaurus consors: Another small heterodontosaurid, it is notable in that it lacks developed canines on both top and lower jaws, leading to a hypothesis that the only known specimen may have been a female, and that there was sexual dimorphism present.

Eocursor parvus: A basal ornithischian, it was originally interpreted as being from the lEF and thus making it of Late Triassic in age, but it was subsequently referred to the lowermost portion of the uEF as an Early Jurassic taxon.

Heterodontosaurus tucki: One of the more common ornithischians from the formation, it is among the best known heterodontosaurids in skeletal anatomy (although Tianyulong is the sole winner for integument), with the specimen SAM-PK-K1332 detailing many aspects of the skeleton. However, a new specimen presented at the 2018 SVP meeting (AM 4766) preserves parts of the anatomy that were lost in SAM-PK-K1332, notably the gastralia, sternal plates and ribs, and other shoulder girdle elements. As noted in the image, this species can grow approximately 75% larger than shown here, as indicated by NMQR 1788. This taxon also is present in the younger Clarens Formation.

Lycorhinus angustidens: A large heterodontosaurid, it was originally described as a cynodont when only part of the dentary was known. While the holotype was lost and is now only left as a natural mold, several other specimens have been complete enough to reconstruct the cranial anatomy of this species. Lanasaurus is considered to be a synonym of Lycorhinus.

Ignavusaurus rachelis: A small massopod from Lesotho, it is only known from a young but fairly complete specimen, having died early, perhaps less than a year old. It has been either considered to be a juvenile specimen of Massospondylus (Yates et al. 2011) or a valid taxon occupying a position near Sarahsaurus in Massospondylidae. A new undescribed Antarctic sauropodomorph on display at the FMNH is reportedly related to Ignavusaurus, so I look forward to the former being published.

Aardonyx celestae: A large facultatively bipedal sauropodiform, it shows the point where sauropodomorphs started to attain a quadrupedal posture from a bipedal stance. Aardonyx may be a relic from the lEF, as there are three other taxa that appear to be closely related in the Late Triassic (Sefapanosaurus, Yate's giant bipedal sauropodiform, and the 'Maphusteng dinosaur' or some other name that it has). A possible juvenile specimen is known (see NHMW 1886-XX-22).

Sauropodiformes? indet. (NHMW 1886-XX-22; = Aardonyx?): Among the many bones that 19th century English fossil hunter Alfred Brown had found in South Africa, one of these was a peculiar small humerus of a sauropodomorph. Figured in the Pentasaurus description to accompany an introductory history to Brown's collections, it appears to have similar morphology to basal sauropodiforms, notably Mussaurus and Sefapanosaurus. Although it cannot be compared with Aardonyx in the lack of overlapping material, I think it is possible that this humerus is from a young individual of Aardonyx based on comparisons with closely related taxa, although only future discoveries can confirm this.

Megapnosaurus rhodesiensis: Yay, a taxon with complicated taxonomic history! I'm not gonna talk about it though, since outlines it well here . Megapnosaurus is known from over two dozen skeletons and hundreds of individual elements from the Forest Sandstone of Zimbabwe, and since there's a wide range of juveniles and adults, we can observe growth and morphological variation in the species. Meanwhile, the taxon is not so commonly preserved as body fossils in the uEF, reaching only around a dozen individuals or so. However, Grallator footprints assignable to this taxon are somewhat frequent at tracksites, both in South Africa and Lesotho, so it probably is more common in the uEF than what the preserved bones indicate.

Arcusaurus pereirabdalorum: A small sauropodomorph known only from juvenile individuals, it interestingly enough seems to be the only non-plateosaurian sauropodmorphs in the uEF, which would mean it is from an otherwise Late Triassic grade, close to Pantydraco and Thecodontosaurus.

Lesothosaurus diagnosticus: The most common ornithischian in the uEF, it is known from numerous specimens. This is including Stormbergia dangershoeki, which is probably a large and old Lesothosaurus individual; the differences can be attributed to ontogeny. They appear to have been gregarious, staying in groups of at least three.

Antetonitrus ingenipes: I already talked about it here , so I don't need to do it again.

Thyreophora? indet.: This one's a little tricky; Moyenisauropus is a fairly common ichnotaxon in the uEF of Lesotho, but it hasn't been really assigned to a particular type of ornithischian besides a facultatively quadrupedal one. The Polish tracks of the same ichnogenus have been assigned to a Scelidosaurus-like animal, but it's not known if this would really apply to the African tracks. If the latter had the same general affinities, then I'd imagine it'd be more gracile than Scelidosaurus. Besides footprints, there is also a brief mention in the 2007 SVP meeting abstracts (on page 49A) about thyreophoran osteoderms being present in the Spion Kop quarry, the same site that has produced Aardonyx, Arcusaurus, and Pulanesaura.

Sauropodiformes indet. (NMQR 3314): The specimen that is the 'face' of modern Melanorosaurus reconstructions (including Scott Hartman's skeletal ), it has been suggested in recent papers (e.g McPhee et al. 2015, Peyre de Fabrègues & Allain 2016 , McPhee et al. 2017) with evidence that NMQR 3314 is not part of the Melanorosaurus hypodigm, which includes the syntypes and NMQR 1551, due to different stratigraphic positions (the syntypes and NMQR 1551 are from the lEF), conflicting morphology, and the simple fact that the syntype series is fragmentary and in need of a revision. They do seem to be closely related, with NMQR 3314 and NMQR 1551 often being next to each other on the sauropodiform phylogeny tree, although not always as sister taxa.

Massospondylus carinatus: The most common sauropodomorph from the uEF (and also literally the only one known from it for close to a century), with the Massospondylus Range Zone named after it, the original syntype series were destroyed in WWII, and a neotype was needed to prevent making the genus dubious. While Micheal R. Cooper described many specimens from Zimbabwe that he referred to Massospondylus, their relation to the South African material seems to have been unclear. It wasn't only until 2010 that it got a neotype , with the name being stuck to the specimen BP/1/4934, or affectionately known as 'Big Momma'. Also yes, there are babies. I should've scaled them too, maybe. Oh well, for another day.

Pulanesaura eocollum: Already talked about it here .

Gryponyx africanus: Pretty much the only taxon that managed to crawl out of the pool that is known as Massospondylus synonyms, it was originally described by Robert Broom in 1911 as what they thought basal sauropodmorphs were at the time - theropod-like bipdeal dinosaurs, stemming from the old assumption that rauisuchid and basal sauropodmorph material belonged to the same animals. While synonymized with Massospondylus in the 1970's to 1980's, a 2004 analysis considered it to be a valid genus; however, it is yet to be redescribed.

Brachyopidae? indet. (MHNH L1970): Only known from a small skull fragment, it was originally described from as a mastodonsaurid in 1982, it was reassigned to a brachyopoid, probably a brachyopid, in 2005 . I found that the preserved portion fitted considerably well, if not very, in the skull of Xenobrachyops, a brachyopid from Early Triassic Australia. Although given an ambiguous time range in the 2005 reassessment spanning the entire Elliot Formation, it was reported to be from the 'A7' zone of Ellenberger's stratigraphic division published in 1970 , which apparently is from the lower parts of the uEF. Due to its fragmentary state, the size here is not solid, and is possibly much smaller.

Kayentapus ambrokholohali: While it may be no tyrannosaurid, the footprints of this ichnotaxon indicate a very large theropod for its time, easily breaking into the 8-9 metre range. While ascribed to a "relatively gracile, carnivorous dinosaur with an allosaurid-like bauplan", I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that it might also be a dilophosaurid or something that resembles Crylophosaurus, but we'll see.

cf. Siderops sp. (BP/1/5092): Chigutisaurids in the uEF are somewhat of an uncommon occurrence, but this one interestingly enough seems to be related to the Australian genus, although support for this referral is incredibly weak, with it being based on particular character ("presence of teeth on the posterior coronoid"), which maybe is present in other chigutisaurids (although I'm not going on a paper hunt just to confirm this).

Loricata? indet. (SAM 383): Yeah, this has a description of its own too. In the case that you don't choose to click that link and read it (which makes you the big poopoo dumb), this scaling should be taken with the amount of salt you have in your kitchen. Not all of it though, just keep some for cooking and buy more for later.

Ledumahadi mafube: We end off our essay(?) with the largest animal in the uEF (even though it probably isn't 12 tonnes). Strangely enough, even though the uEF was going through a period of increased aridification, some seem to have went into super size mode,like Ledumahadi and Kayentapus ambrokholohali. Dunno if that's a case of an arm's race, although it would be an interesting idea. I talk about Ledumahadi a little more here .

And that's all of the animals I've scaled for this chart. As stated in the image, I opted not or couldn't scale some animals, like Massospondylus kaalae (trouble cross-scaling with M. carinatus juveniles due to lack of postcranial measurements; Lufengosaurus didn't help either), an unpublished Melanorosaurus-like sauropodiform, 'Predator X' (supposed large theropod, not Pliosaurus funkei), and a putative pterosaur from the Spion Kop quarry (same site as where Aardonyx, Arcusaurus, and Pulanesaura are from), Notochampsa longipes (there seems to be a upcoming paper on it that redescribes it), an undescribed tritheledontid mentioned in a 2002 SVP meeting asbtract, a large intermediate sauropodomorph mentioned in McPhee et al. 2017 ((AM 6147), and some intermediate chigutisaurid specimens (BP/1/5111, BP/1/5406). There is also some that can be inferred to be present in the formation based on their presence in both older and younger formations even with the absence of actual fossils, which are the redfieldiiform Daedalichthys formosa (present in the Middle Triassic Cynognathus Assemblage Zone to the base of the Clarens Formation) and Semionotus capensis (which as discussed above may be represented by the unpublished semionotid specimen), although of course we'll need actual fossils to confirm this notion.

While it may not be the most notable among Jurassic formations, the uEF's diverse fauna is quite unlike anywhere else's (even if they might be spread across a time of roughly 2 million years), and it is an exceptional window to how these animals diversified after the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary, as well as correlating this fauna with others around the world, like the Kayenta Formation and Lufeng Formation. Hopefully in the following years we can see more exciting discoveries from this underappreciated formation.

While I won't be citing papers here, if you wish to see the paper or some other source that describes any of the taxa here or talks about anything else that I've paraphrased, then do post a comment and I can link it for you.

REFERENCES

The tritheledontids, Tritylodon , Australochelys, the diademodontid, Orthosuchus, Litargosuchus , Sphenosuchus, MHNH.F.LES400 (although gets credit for drawing out the presacral series), Aardonyx , Ignavusaurus, Antetonitrus , Arcusaurus, Pulanesaura, and Ledumahadi were all more or less made from scratch by me. Australochelys and the diademodontid are extrapolated from my unreleased Palaeochersis and Diademodon schematics, respectively.

's skeletals of Dilophosaurus , Eocursor , Heterodontosaurus , Lesothosaurus (it is labelled here as Stormbergia, yes), Scelidosaurus , Melanorosaurus , and Massospondylus were used for this chart. Although some were left as is, I modified some to be used for other taxa:
I used the Heterodontosaurus skeletal for all the other heterodontosaurids, making minor modifications to the head using the line drawings from Sereno (2012).
The Dracovenator silhouette is a headswap of 's skull reconstruction and Hartman's Dilophosaurus. I used this silhouette for the Kayentapus as well.
While the Gryponyx silhouette technically is mainly based on Hartman's Massospondylus, it also incorporates GSP's Lufengosaurus and Massospondylus.

The Megazostrodon silhouette is taken from David Peters' skeletal . Yes, it's him. Fuck you.

Erythrotherium is taken from Bob Nicholl's great reconstruction of Morganucodon.

The semionotid is based on a line drawing of Semionotus capensis in Jubb & Gardiner (1975) , headswapped with the S. elegans reconstruction from Olsen & McCune (1991) .

The Clevosaurus silhouette is based on the C. hudsoni skeletal reconstruction from Fraser (1988) , with the skull swapped to C. bairdi from Sues et al. (1994).

I actually have no goddamn idea what Queensland lungfish reconstruction I used for Ceratodus.

Protosuchus haughtoni is modified from the skeletal reconstruction of P. richardsoni from Irmis et al. (2013), which in turn is modified from Colbert (1951) .

GSP's skeletal of Megapnosaurus was used here, modified to the measurements reported in Raath (1977) .

SAM 383 is scaled after NHMUK R3301 , which in turn was made from ' unreleased Fasolasuchus schematic.

MHNH L1970 and cf. Siderops sp. were both modified from the S. kehli skeletal in Warren & Hutchinson (1983) ; MHNH L1970 was headswapped with the cranium of Xenobrachyops from Howie (1972) and the dentary of Bathignathus from Damiani & Jeannot (2002) .

now to focus on school now :^)

Description
So uh, I made this thing. Amazingly enough, it took me a month short of a year to make (in contrast to the Kem Kem Beds chart, which took me like, a little over a month? I need to update it someday anyways...). Since no one really bothered to make good skeletals or other references for a lot of these animals, if there was any at all, a whole bunch of these had to be made from scratch. And after loads of finishing, critique, revisions, some side stuff, and sacrifice of homework time, I managed to finish creating all the skeletals/schematics needed to make this chart (left out some stuff but shhhh).

The Elliot Formation is a geological formation in southern Africa that has produced (and continues to) numerous fossils of dinosaurs, many other animals, and the occasional plants in South Africa and Lesotho alike. Spanning the Late Triassic to the Early Jurassic (Norian to Sinemurian), the formation is split into the lower Elliot Formation and upper Elliot Formation (which will be abbreviated to lEF and uEF respectively from now on), the former spanning the Norian to Rhaetian of the Late Triassic, while the latter spans the Hettangian to Sinemurian of the Early Jurassic. While both members were floodplains with rivers and lakes, their depositional styles are different: the lEF was a system of permanent, meandering rivers in a humid to semi-arid climate, while the uEF was a more unpredictable environment, with ephermeral water sources and flash floods in an increasingly semi-arid climate that intensified throughout the formation, until it led to a massive desert environment in the overlying Clarens Formation.

The lEF preserves chigutisaurids, the large dicynodont Pentasaurus, the cynodonts Scalenodontoides (which is pretty damn huge) and Elliotherium, putative 'rauisuchians' that might've resembled Fasolasuchus, a lot of sauropodomorphs, many which are unpublished or are in need of a redescription, and intermediate theropods. The uEF preserves... well, what you can see here. A much more varied fauna than back in the formation's Triassic days, and indeed it probably is the most diverse (terrestrial) vertebrate fauna of the Early Jurassic, although it's unlikely that many of these coexisted at the same time as noted in the image. The uEF also has a fair amount of preserved invertebrates like clam shrimps, ostracods, putative crayfish, scarab beetles, intermediate beetles that bore holes in bones like dermestids, termites, and mayflies, and some flora (Agathoxylon, Otozamites, horsetails, ferns belonging to Matoniaceae, etc.).

And I guess I'll get to the vertebrates now...

Megazostrodon rudnerae: A small rare mammaliaform, it appears to have been insectivorous, foraging on ground or climbing trees and stumps.

Erythrotherium parringtoni: Another small mammaliform related to the British Morganucodon, it was probably taking the same niche as Megazostrodon in tiny insectivores.

Semionotidae indet. (= Semionotus capensis?; BPI collections): While not formally described as of yet, the known material appears to have been misidentified as a dinosaur initially, but was subsequently reassigned as a actinopterygian . American paleontologist Paul E. Olsen has suggested in the blogpost's comments that it belongs to a semionotid, perhaps Semionotus itself, and I follow this interpretation here. Since Semionotus capensis, the only species of Semionotus from South Africa, is present in both the underlying Molteno Formation and the overlying Clarens Formation, it is possible that this specimen belongs to this species, which can be inferred to be present in the uEF based on its temporal range.

Clevosaurus sp.: A small clevosaur, it was probably similar to tuataras in life appearance, and had an omnivorous or carnivorous diet, its jaws acting in a scissor-like fashion. Of note for this particular specimen is that it appears to be close to identical to the Nova Scotian C. bairdi and the Chinese C. mcgilli, aside from a slightly more gracile skull. This shows one member of the uEF fauna that is shared with other formations from different parts of the globe.

Diarthrognathus broomi: Part of the upper Elliot original tritheledontid trio alongside Pachygenelus and Tritheledon, it is the smallest of three. It was probably insectivorous, and probably fossorial like Pachygenelus. It appears to have survived into the younger Clarens Formation with Pachygenelus and a few other animals.

cf. Ceratodus sp.: Another undescribed fish, yay. Tooth plates of these lungfish appear to be fairly common, and associated partial skeletons have been mentioned in literature. Being lungfish, they should've been good at surviving through the dry periods of the uEF like modern day Queensland lungfish, although not to the extent of cocoon-generating African lungfish that inhabit the same continent today. I scaled it off after C. kannemeyeri from the underlying Molteno Formation.

Pachygenelus monus: A fairly long-snouted tritheledontid, it is the second most common uEF cynodont behind Tritylodon. Burrow casts from the formation have been attributed to this taxon, being too large to belong to Tritylodon. It is among the few uEF taxa to be found in the younger Clarens Formation as well. Fossils of this genus have been found in Nova Scotia of Canada as well.

Tritheledon riconoi: The largest and rarest of the uEF tritheledontids, it is also the only taxon that appears to have went extinct before the Clarens Formation. Its diet may have been similar to that of Diarthrognathus and Pachygenelus, although due to larger size it may have also targeted smaller vertebrates alongside insects and other invertebrates.

Tritylodon longaevus: A large herbivorous cynodont, it is the most common cynodont in the uEF, with hundreds of specimens being discovered, and even having the Tritylodon Acme Zone named after it, located in the middle of the uEF. I talk about it in a little more detail here .

Australochelys africanus: A seemingly rare turtle only known from a single skull found in the Tritylodon Acme Zone, it is closely related to Palaeochersis of the Triassic Los Colorados Formation. Who knows about the diet, figure it out for yourself.

Diademodontidae indet.: The largest cynodont in the uEF, this guy is what you'd call a relic taxon, being a member of an otherwise Middle Triassic to Late Triassic family. It was the last survivor of one of the two major branches of Eucynodontia, that being the huge-bodied cynognathians. While Cynognathus is the outlier of the group as a carnivore, the rest (like Diademodon and traversodontids) were herbivores or omnivores.

Dracovenator regenti: The southern copycat of Dilophosaurus, it represents the larger ends of the rare theropod fauna in the uEF. Footprints from the uppermost Elliot Formation in Lesotho have been very tentatively assigned to this species based on size, extending its paleogeographic range. It is possible that Kayentapus ambrokholohali also belongs to an exceptionally large Dracovenator individual, although it could be a different dilophosaurid genus or, as its description suggested, an allosaurid-like theropod.

Orthosuchus stormbergi: A small crocodyliform restricted to the uppermost Elliot Formation, it was a terrestrial predator, probably hunting the cynodonts that it coexisted with.

Protosuchus haughtoni: The most common crocodyliform in the uEF, it more or less spans the entire uEF, and is found in both South Africa and Lesotho. This genus is also found in the contemporary Kayenta Formation of southwestern America and the Canadian Nova Scotia.

Litargosuchus leptorhyncus: If you thought Terrestrisuchus was the lankiest then this 'sphenosuchian' might just break the records. Originally described as a specimen of the now-dubious 'Pedeticosaurus' in 1988, it was dubbed as a new genus in 2002 alongside Kayentasuchus.

Sphenosuchus acutus: Yeah, I guess this dude is pretty lanky too. Thanks to its larger size compared to the other uEF crocodylomorphs, it could tackle prey larger than cynodonts, like heterodontosaurids.

Sauropodiformes indet. (MHNH.F.LES400): One of the many sauropodomorphs in the uEF, this sauropodiform is from the Ha Noosi locality of Lesotho, the same site that produced the Abrictosaurus holotype. First mentioned in a 2014 SVP meeting abstract , it was later described in a 2016 thesis , describing the specimen in full detail. It is known from a well-preserved postcranium (although majorly distorted in many areas), only lacking most of the right leg, most of the pelvis, sacrals, and caudals. It appears to be on the basal side of things, my personal opinion being that it sits somewhere near where Mussaurus is on the sauropodomorph tree.

Pegomastax africana: A tiny heterodontosaurid that unfortunately has been made popular by ARK, it has a robust dentary and predentary compared to other heterodontosaurs, which is likely a specialized adaptation for feeding.

Abrictosaurus consors: Another small heterodontosaurid, it is notable in that it lacks developed canines on both top and lower jaws, leading to a hypothesis that the only known specimen may have been a female, and that there was sexual dimorphism present.

Eocursor parvus: A basal ornithischian, it was originally interpreted as being from the lEF and thus making it of Late Triassic in age, but it was subsequently referred to the lowermost portion of the uEF as an Early Jurassic taxon.

Heterodontosaurus tucki: One of the more common ornithischians from the formation, it is among the best known heterodontosaurids in skeletal anatomy (although Tianyulong is the sole winner for integument), with the specimen SAM-PK-K1332 detailing many aspects of the skeleton. However, a new specimen presented at the 2018 SVP meeting (AM 4766) preserves parts of the anatomy that were lost in SAM-PK-K1332, notably the gastralia, sternal plates and ribs, and other shoulder girdle elements. As noted in the image, this species can grow approximately 75% larger than shown here, as indicated by NMQR 1788. This taxon also is present in the younger Clarens Formation.

Lycorhinus angustidens: A large heterodontosaurid, it was originally described as a cynodont when only part of the dentary was known. While the holotype was lost and is now only left as a natural mold, several other specimens have been complete enough to reconstruct the cranial anatomy of this species. Lanasaurus is considered to be a synonym of Lycorhinus.

Ignavusaurus rachelis: A small massopod from Lesotho, it is only known from a young but fairly complete specimen, having died early, perhaps less than a year old. It has been either considered to be a juvenile specimen of Massospondylus (Yates et al. 2011) or a valid taxon occupying a position near Sarahsaurus in Massospondylidae. A new undescribed Antarctic sauropodomorph on display at the FMNH is reportedly related to Ignavusaurus, so I look forward to the former being published.

Aardonyx celestae: A large facultatively bipedal sauropodiform, it shows the point where sauropodomorphs started to attain a quadrupedal posture from a bipedal stance. Aardonyx may be a relic from the lEF, as there are three other taxa that appear to be closely related in the Late Triassic (Sefapanosaurus, Yate's giant bipedal sauropodiform, and the 'Maphusteng dinosaur' or some other name that it has). A possible juvenile specimen is known (see NHMW 1886-XX-22).

Sauropodiformes? indet. (NHMW 1886-XX-22; = Aardonyx?): Among the many bones that 19th century English fossil hunter Alfred Brown had found in South Africa, one of these was a peculiar small humerus of a sauropodomorph. Figured in the Pentasaurus description to accompany an introductory history to Brown's collections, it appears to have similar morphology to basal sauropodiforms, notably Mussaurus and Sefapanosaurus. Although it cannot be compared with Aardonyx in the lack of overlapping material, I think it is possible that this humerus is from a young individual of Aardonyx based on comparisons with closely related taxa, although only future discoveries can confirm this.

Megapnosaurus rhodesiensis: Yay, a taxon with complicated taxonomic history! I'm not gonna talk about it though, since outlines it well here . Megapnosaurus is known from over two dozen skeletons and hundreds of individual elements from the Forest Sandstone of Zimbabwe, and since there's a wide range of juveniles and adults, we can observe growth and morphological variation in the species. Meanwhile, the taxon is not so commonly preserved as body fossils in the uEF, reaching only around a dozen individuals or so. However, Grallator footprints assignable to this taxon are somewhat frequent at tracksites, both in South Africa and Lesotho, so it probably is more common in the uEF than what the preserved bones indicate.

Arcusaurus pereirabdalorum: A small sauropodomorph known only from juvenile individuals, it interestingly enough seems to be the only non-plateosaurian sauropodmorphs in the uEF, which would mean it is from an otherwise Late Triassic grade, close to Pantydraco and Thecodontosaurus.

Lesothosaurus diagnosticus: The most common ornithischian in the uEF, it is known from numerous specimens. This is including Stormbergia dangershoeki, which is probably a large and old Lesothosaurus individual; the differences can be attributed to ontogeny. They appear to have been gregarious, staying in groups of at least three.

Antetonitrus ingenipes: I already talked about it here , so I don't need to do it again.

Thyreophora? indet.: This one's a little tricky; Moyenisauropus is a fairly common ichnotaxon in the uEF of Lesotho, but it hasn't been really assigned to a particular type of ornithischian besides a facultatively quadrupedal one. The Polish tracks of the same ichnogenus have been assigned to a Scelidosaurus-like animal, but it's not known if this would really apply to the African tracks. If the latter had the same general affinities, then I'd imagine it'd be more gracile than Scelidosaurus. Besides footprints, there is also a brief mention in the 2007 SVP meeting abstracts (on page 49A) about thyreophoran osteoderms being present in the Spion Kop quarry, the same site that has produced Aardonyx, Arcusaurus, and Pulanesaura.

Sauropodiformes indet. (NMQR 3314): The specimen that is the 'face' of modern Melanorosaurus reconstructions (including Scott Hartman's skeletal ), it has been suggested in recent papers (e.g McPhee et al. 2015, Peyre de Fabrègues & Allain 2016 , McPhee et al. 2017) with evidence that NMQR 3314 is not part of the Melanorosaurus hypodigm, which includes the syntypes and NMQR 1551, due to different stratigraphic positions (the syntypes and NMQR 1551 are from the lEF), conflicting morphology, and the simple fact that the syntype series is fragmentary and in need of a revision. They do seem to be closely related, with NMQR 3314 and NMQR 1551 often being next to each other on the sauropodiform phylogeny tree, although not always as sister taxa.

Massospondylus carinatus: The most common sauropodomorph from the uEF (and also literally the only one known from it for close to a century), with the Massospondylus Range Zone named after it, the original syntype series were destroyed in WWII, and a neotype was needed to prevent making the genus dubious. While Micheal R. Cooper described many specimens from Zimbabwe that he referred to Massospondylus, their relation to the South African material seems to have been unclear. It wasn't only until 2010 that it got a neotype , with the name being stuck to the specimen BP/1/4934, or affectionately known as 'Big Momma'. Also yes, there are babies. I should've scaled them too, maybe. Oh well, for another day.

Pulanesaura eocollum: Already talked about it here .

Gryponyx africanus: Pretty much the only taxon that managed to crawl out of the pool that is known as Massospondylus synonyms, it was originally described by Robert Broom in 1911 as what they thought basal sauropodmorphs were at the time - theropod-like bipdeal dinosaurs, stemming from the old assumption that rauisuchid and basal sauropodmorph material belonged to the same animals. While synonymized with Massospondylus in the 1970's to 1980's, a 2004 analysis considered it to be a valid genus; however, it is yet to be redescribed.

Brachyopidae? indet. (MHNH L1970): Only known from a small skull fragment, it was originally described from as a mastodonsaurid in 1982, it was reassigned to a brachyopoid, probably a brachyopid, in 2005 . I found that the preserved portion fitted considerably well, if not very, in the skull of Xenobrachyops, a brachyopid from Early Triassic Australia. Although given an ambiguous time range in the 2005 reassessment spanning the entire Elliot Formation, it was reported to be from the 'A7' zone of Ellenberger's stratigraphic division published in 1970 , which apparently is from the lower parts of the uEF. Due to its fragmentary state, the size here is not solid, and is possibly much smaller.

Kayentapus ambrokholohali: While it may be no tyrannosaurid, the footprints of this ichnotaxon indicate a very large theropod for its time, easily breaking into the 8-9 metre range. While ascribed to a "relatively gracile, carnivorous dinosaur with an allosaurid-like bauplan", I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that it might also be a dilophosaurid or something that resembles Crylophosaurus, but we'll see.

cf. Siderops sp. (BP/1/5092): Chigutisaurids in the uEF are somewhat of an uncommon occurrence, but this one interestingly enough seems to be related to the Australian genus, although support for this referral is incredibly weak, with it being based on particular character ("presence of teeth on the posterior coronoid"), which maybe is present in other chigutisaurids (although I'm not going on a paper hunt just to confirm this).

Loricata? indet. (SAM 383): Yeah, this has a description of its own too. In the case that you don't choose to click that link and read it (which makes you the big poopoo dumb), this scaling should be taken with the amount of salt you have in your kitchen. Not all of it though, just keep some for cooking and buy more for later.

Ledumahadi mafube: We end off our essay(?) with the largest animal in the uEF (even though it probably isn't 12 tonnes). Strangely enough, even though the uEF was going through a period of increased aridification, some seem to have went into super size mode,like Ledumahadi and Kayentapus ambrokholohali. Dunno if that's a case of an arm's race, although it would be an interesting idea. I talk about Ledumahadi a little more here .

And that's all of the animals I've scaled for this chart. As stated in the image, I opted not or couldn't scale some animals, like Massospondylus kaalae (trouble cross-scaling with M. carinatus juveniles due to lack of postcranial measurements; Lufengosaurus didn't help either), an unpublished Melanorosaurus-like sauropodiform, 'Predator X' (supposed large theropod, not Pliosaurus funkei), and a putative pterosaur from the Spion Kop quarry (same site as where Aardonyx, Arcusaurus, and Pulanesaura are from), Notochampsa longipes (there seems to be a upcoming paper on it that redescribes it), an undescribed tritheledontid mentioned in a 2002 SVP meeting asbtract, a large intermediate sauropodomorph mentioned in McPhee et al. 2017 ((AM 6147), and some intermediate chigutisaurid specimens (BP/1/5111, BP/1/5406). There is also some that can be inferred to be present in the formation based on their presence in both older and younger formations even with the absence of actual fossils, which are the redfieldiiform Daedalichthys formosa (present in the Middle Triassic Cynognathus Assemblage Zone to the base of the Clarens Formation) and Semionotus capensis (which as discussed above may be represented by the unpublished semionotid specimen), although of course we'll need actual fossils to confirm this notion.

While it may not be the most notable among Jurassic formations, the uEF's diverse fauna is quite unlike anywhere else's (even if they might be spread across a time of roughly 2 million years), and it is an exceptional window to how these animals diversified after the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary, as well as correlating this fauna with others around the world, like the Kayenta Formation and Lufeng Formation. Hopefully in the following years we can see more exciting discoveries from this underappreciated formation.

While I won't be citing papers here, if you wish to see the paper or some other source that describes any of the taxa here or talks about anything else that I've paraphrased, then do post a comment and I can link it for you.

REFERENCES

The tritheledontids, Tritylodon , Australochelys, the diademodontid, Orthosuchus, Litargosuchus , Sphenosuchus, MHNH.F.LES400 (although gets credit for drawing out the presacral series), Aardonyx , Ignavusaurus, Antetonitrus , Arcusaurus, Pulanesaura, and Ledumahadi were all more or less made from scratch by me. Australochelys and the diademodontid are extrapolated from my unreleased Palaeochersis and Diademodon schematics, respectively.

's skeletals of Dilophosaurus , Eocursor , Heterodontosaurus , Lesothosaurus (it is labelled here as Stormbergia, yes), Scelidosaurus , Melanorosaurus , and Massospondylus were used for this chart. Although some were left as is, I modified some to be used for other taxa:
I used the Heterodontosaurus skeletal for all the other heterodontosaurids, making minor modifications to the head using the line drawings from Sereno (2012).
The Dracovenator silhouette is a headswap of 's skull reconstruction and Hartman's Dilophosaurus. I used this silhouette for the Kayentapus as well.
While the Gryponyx silhouette technically is mainly based on Hartman's Massospondylus, it also incorporates GSP's Lufengosaurus and Massospondylus.

The Megazostrodon silhouette is taken from David Peters' skeletal . Yes, it's him. Fuck you.

Erythrotherium is taken from Bob Nicholl's great reconstruction of Morganucodon.

The semionotid is based on a line drawing of Semionotus capensis in Jubb & Gardiner (1975) , headswapped with the S. elegans reconstruction from Olsen & McCune (1991) .

The Clevosaurus silhouette is based on the C. hudsoni skeletal reconstruction from Fraser (1988) , with the skull swapped to C. bairdi from Sues et al. (1994).

I actually have no goddamn idea what Queensland lungfish reconstruction I used for Ceratodus.

Protosuchus haughtoni is modified from the skeletal reconstruction of P. richardsoni from Irmis et al. (2013), which in turn is modified from Colbert (1951) .

GSP's skeletal of Megapnosaurus was used here, modified to the measurements reported in Raath (1977) .

SAM 383 is scaled after NHMUK R3301 , which in turn was made from ' unreleased Fasolasuchus schematic.

MHNH L1970 and cf. Siderops sp. were both modified from the S. kehli skeletal in Warren & Hutchinson (1983) ; MHNH L1970 was headswapped with the cranium of Xenobrachyops from Howie (1972) and the dentary of Bathignathus from Damiani & Jeannot (2002) .

now to focus on school now :^)