Other referred specimens include IVPP V 48013 (a skull) as well as many articulated and disarticulated skeletal remains concentrated in a bonebed which is almost completely composed of Lotosaurus bones.

Lotosaurus, like some other members of the Poposauroidea, had a sail on its back, granting it an appearance superficially similar to that of Permian pelycosaurs like Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus, although not as high.

[4] Although modern cladistic analyses have abandoned the order Thecodontia, they have also supported the theory that Lotosaurus was a distant relative of ctenosauriscids.

[6] In his massive revision of archosaurs which included a large cladistic analysis, Sterling J. Nesbitt (2011) found Lotosaurus to be a member of the group Poposauroidea.

Although shuvosaurids walked on two legs and lacked sails, their toothless beaks and presumed herbivorous habits resembled those of Lotosaurus.

[7] The Lotosaurus site was once near the northern shore of the South China Craton, a subcontinent which drifted through Tethys ocean during the Middle Triassic.

It has been suggested that the group perished due to thirst or sickness during the dry season, perhaps while gathered around an evaporating or contaminated watering hole.

Their rotting carcasses would have soon afterwards been covered in water and sediment upon the arrival of the wet season, which would explain the apparent but slight scattering of bones.