[1] Metoposaurids can be distinguished from the very similar mastodonsauroids by the position of their eyes, placed far forward on the snout.
Several mass accumulations of metoposaurid fossils are known from the southwestern United States and Morocco.
Many individuals would have died in one area, creating a dense bone bed once fossilized.
[2] Recent sedimentological studies suggest that the mass accumulations were not the result of droughts, but of river currents carrying remains.
The large gatherings of metoposaurids may have been breeding sites, and were probably common across floodplains in Late Triassic Pangaea.