During the Late Triassic, metoposaurids were one of the last significant families of temnospondyl amphibians, and they have long been used in the correlation of Late Triassic tetrapod assemblages. Their fossil record extends across much of Late Triassic Pangea, including important metoposaurid fossils from the USA, Canada, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Morocco, India and Madagascar. Six genera of metoposarids are recognized: 1) Adamanian-Apachean Apachesaurus, endemic to the western USA, 2) Otischalkian Arganasaurus and Dutuitosaurus, endemic to Morocco, 3) Otischalkian-Revueltian Koskinonodon, endemic to the western USA, 4) Panthasaurus from the Otischalkian of India, and 5) Otischalkian-Adamanian Metoposaurus, known from the western USA, eastern Canada, Portugal, Italy, Germany, and Poland. Of the metoposaurid genera, only Metoposaurus has a broad enough palaeogeographic distribution and relatively restricted temporal range to be of biochronological value; its biochron identifies the Otischalkian–Adamanian (middle–late Carnian). The oldest metoposaurids are of middle Carnian age, the age of the Carnian pluvial episode of global climate. The middle Carnian broad palaeogeographic distribution, diversity and cosmopolitanism of the metoposaurids, followed by reduced diversity and relative endemism, likely indicates that climate changes were an important factor in their evolution.
Age assignments of Triassic tetrapod fossils can be achieved by direct reference to a scheme of Triassic land-vertebrate faunachrons (LVFs) that correlates Triassic tetrapod fossil assemblages to each other based solely on the tetrapod fossils. Correlation of Triassic tetrapod assemblages to the standard global chronostratigraphic scale (SGCS, the “marine timescale”) is a separate cross correlation between the vertebrate biochronology and marine biochronology that usually relies on other data (e. g., palynostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, radioisotopic ages) to be completed. Late Triassic tetrapod fossils in southern Poland are found at two stratigraphic positions, the Krasiejów and Lisowice levels. The tetrapod assemblage of the Krasiejów level is assigned to the early Adamanian LVF based primarily on the stratigraphic overlap of the phytosaur Parasuchus with the Adamanian index aetosaur Stagonolepis. The amphibians Cyclotosaurus and Gerrothorax, a Proterochersis-like turtle and the aetosaur Paratypothorax from the Lisowice level indicate it is assignable to the Revueltian LVF. Cross correlations to the SGCS are less definitive, but suggest that the Krasiejów level is late Carnian and the Lisowice level is early/middle Norian. However, this correlation of the Krasiejów level is confounded by disagreements over correlation of the marine Carnian–Norian boundary to nonmarine strata. Indeed, the possibility that the Krasiejów tetrapods fill a gap in the early Norian record of tetrapods merits consideration. Such difficulties emphasize the value of correlating tetrapod assemblages to each other using a land-vertebrate biostratigraphy/biochronology, instead of immediately attempting the more problematic correlation to the SGCS.
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