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Map of Triassic sites in Shanxi Province, China
Map of Shanxi Province Trassic sites (after Lucas 1993, fig.3)
Northern China has two zones of exposed Triassic formations containing vertebrate fossils in the Ordos and Jungghar Basins. These contain a variety of fossils of synapsids and reptiles, as well as bony fish, with a much scarcer representation of labyrinthodont amphibians.
In the northeast, the provinces of Shanxi and Shaanxi straddle the Yellow River, along whose valley many fossil outcrops are exposed. The Early Triassic faunal assemblage from Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces is called the Fugguan fauna, named for the town of Fugu which lies amid the Heshangou Formation (Lucas 1993, Sun 1980). Various reptilian taxa are found, including procolophonids (two species of Eumatabolodon), the protosucherian Xilosuchus, and Fugusuchus, a large Erythrosuchid ("red crocodile"), representing the largest archosaur predators in the Cygnognathus zone in South Africa.
Also found in the the Fugguan fauna were a few unidentfied remains of labyrinthodont amphibians, and the lungfish Ceratodus ("horned tooth"), similar to examples found in the Bashunchank Formation in Russia.
References:
Lucas, S.G. 1993 Vertebrate biochronology of the Triassic of China. In Lucas, S.G. and Morales, M. (eds.). The Nonmarine Triassic. New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science Bulletin. pp. 301–306.
Sun, Ailing 1980. Late Permian and Triassic Terrestial Tetrapods of North China. Vertebrata PalAsiatica Vol XVIII, No.2, pp. 100-110.
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