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Asaphestera
''Asaphestera'' is an extinct genus of a tetrapod described on the basis of fossils from the Carboniferous of the Joggins locality in Nova Scotia, Canada. It was originally described as an undetermined lepospondyl and subsequently classified as a microsaur within the family Tuditanidae. A study published in May 2020 found that specimens referred to ''Asaphestera'' represented several unrelated species. Steen (1934)'s original species name ''Asaphestera platyris'' was retained for a skull which has been re-evaluated as the earliest known synapsid. The type species of ''Asaphestera'' is ''Asaphestera platyris'', named by Steen (1934) based on three skulls. Carroll & Gaskill (1978) noted that one of the skulls was briefly named as the species ''"Hylerpeton ''Hylerpeton'' is an extinct genus of leponspondyl amphibian belonging to the family Gymnarthridae from the late Carboniferous period. The nominal species ''"Hylerpeton" longidentatum'' Dawson, 1876 was considered possibly no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microsaur
Microsauria ("small lizards") is an extinct, possibly polyphyletic order of tetrapods from the late Carboniferous and early Permian periods. It is the most diverse and species-rich group of lepospondyls. Recently, Microsauria has been considered paraphyletic, as several other non-microsaur lepospondyl groups such as Lysorophia seem to be nested in it. Microsauria is now commonly used as a collective term for the grade of lepospondyls that were originally classified as members of Microsauria. The microsaurs all had short tails and small legs, but were otherwise quite varied in form. The group included lizard-like animals that were relatively well-adapted to living on dry land, burrowing forms, and others that, like the modern axolotl, retained their gills into adult life, and so presumably never left the water. Distribution Microsaur remains have been found from Europe and North America in Late Carboniferous and Early Permian localities. Most North American microsaurs have bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joggins Formation
The Joggins Formation is a geologic formation in Nova Scotia. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period, including ''Hylonomus'', the earliest known reptile. In addition to fossils, the Joggins Formation was a valuable source of coal from the 17th century until the mid-20th century. The Joggins Formation's spectacular coastal exposure, the Joggins Fossil Cliffs at Coal Mine Point, was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008. History Early mining Prior to European colonization, the Joggins Formation and surrounding territory was part of the Miꞌkmaꞌki, the traditional homeland of the Mi'kmaq nation. French colonization of the Bay of Fundy began in 1604. Acadian miners from Beaubassin were the first Europeans to mine the cliffs at Joggins, taking advantage of the deposits less than a decade after Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin visited the site in 1686. Though Franquelin failed to make any mention of coal on his 1686 map, the document precisely det ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lepospondyli
Lepospondyli is a diverse taxon of early tetrapods. With the exception of one late-surviving lepospondyl from the Late Permian of Morocco (''Diplocaulus minumus''), lepospondyls lived from the Early Carboniferous ( Mississippian) to the Early Permian and were geographically restricted to what is now Europe and North America. Five major groups of lepospondyls are known: Adelospondyli; Aïstopoda; Lysorophia; Microsauria; and Nectridea. Lepospondyls have a diverse range of body forms and include species with newt-like, eel- or snake-like, and lizard-like forms. Various species were aquatic, semiaquatic, or terrestrial. None were large (the biggest genus, the diplocaulid ''Diplocaulus'', reached a meter in length, but most were much smaller), and they are assumed to have lived in specialized ecological niches not taken by the more numerous temnospondyl amphibians that coexisted with them in the Paleozoic. Lepospondyli was named in 1888 by Karl Alfred von Zittel, who coined the name t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synapsid
Synapsids + (, 'arch') > () "having a fused arch"; synonymous with ''theropsids'' (Greek, "beast-face") are one of the two major groups of animals that evolved from basal amniotes, the other being the sauropsids, the group that includes reptiles and birds. The group includes mammals and every animal more closely related to mammals than to sauropsids. Unlike other amniotes, synapsids have a single temporal fenestra, an opening low in the skull roof behind each eye orbit, leaving a bony arch beneath each; this accounts for their name. The distinctive temporal fenestra developed about 318 million years ago during the Late Carboniferous period, when synapsids and sauropsids diverged, but was subsequently merged with the orbit in early mammals. Traditionally, non-mammalian synapsids were believed to have evolved from reptiles, and therefore described as mammal-like reptiles in classical systematics, and primitive synapsids were also referred to as pelycosaurs, or pelycosaur-gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eothyrididae
Eothyrididae is an extinct family of very primitive, insectivorous synapsids. Only three genera are known, ''Eothyris'', '' Vaughnictis'' and '' Oedaleops'', all from the early Permian of North America. Their main distinguishing feature is the large caniniform tooth in front of the maxilla. Eothyridids share with the Caseidae a number of specialised features associated with the morphology of the snout and external naris and it is likely that their common ancestor was close in build to ''Eothyris''. The two together form the clade Caseasauria. ''Eothyris'' is known from a single skull specimen; ''Oedaleops'' is known from three partial skulls and some parts of some limbs. ''Vaughnictis'' is known from a partial skull, six dorsal vertebrae and some hind-limb bones. The skulls are approximately six centimeters in length, suggesting that the total length of the animals was under one meter. The species were found in the lower Permian in what is today North America. In modern clad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carboniferous'' means "coal-bearing", from the Latin '' carbō'' ("coal") and '' ferō'' ("bear, carry"), and refers to the many coal beds formed globally during that time. The first of the modern 'system' names, it was coined by geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822, based on a study of the British rock succession. The Carboniferous is often treated in North America as two geological periods, the earlier Mississippian and the later Pennsylvanian. Terrestrial animal life was well established by the Carboniferous Period. Tetrapods (four limbed vertebrates), which had originated from lobe-finned fish during the preceding Devonian, became pentadactylous in and diversified during the Carboniferous, including early amphibian line ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family (taxonomy), family. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. ''Panthera leo'' (lion) and ''Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus ''Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomy (biology), taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tetrapod
Tetrapods (; ) are four-limbed vertebrate animals constituting the superclass Tetrapoda (). It includes extant and extinct amphibians, sauropsids ( reptiles, including dinosaurs and therefore birds) and synapsids (pelycosaurs, extinct therapsids and all extant mammals). Tetrapods evolved from a clade of primitive semiaquatic animals known as the Tetrapodomorpha which, in turn, evolved from ancient lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygians) around 390 million years ago in the Middle Devonian period; their forms were transitional between lobe-finned fishes and true four-limbed tetrapods. Limbed vertebrates (tetrapods in the broad sense of the word) are first known from Middle Devonian trackways, and body fossils became common near the end of the Late Devonian but these were all aquatic. The first crown-tetrapods (last common ancestors of extant tetrapods capable of terrestrial locomotion) appeared by the very early Carboniferous, 350 million years ago. The specific aquatic ancestors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nova Scotia, Canada
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native English-speakers, and the province's population is 969,383 according to the 2021 Census. It is the most populous of Canada's Atlantic provinces. It is the country's second-most densely populated province and second-smallest province by area, both after Prince Edward Island. Its area of includes Cape Breton Island and 3,800 other coastal islands. The Nova Scotia peninsula is connected to the rest of North America by the Isthmus of Chignecto, on which the province's land border with New Brunswick is located. The province borders the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east, and is separated from Prince Edward Island and the island of Newfoundland by the Northumberland and Cabot straits, respective ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family (biology)
Family ( la, familia, plural ') is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". What belongs to a family—or if a described family should be recognized at all—are proposed and determined by practicing taxonomists. There are no hard rules for describing or recognizing a family, but in plants, they can be characterized on the basis of both vegetative and reproductive features of plant species. Taxonomists often take different positions about descriptions, and there may be no broad consensus across the scientific community for some time. The publishing of new data and opini ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tuditanidae
Tuditanidae is an extinct family of tuditanomorph microsaurs. Fossils have been found from Nova Scotia, Ohio, and the Czech Republic and are Late Carboniferous in age. Tuditanids were medium-sized terrestrial microsaurs that resembled lizards. Postcranial material is best known from the genus '' Tuditanus'', showing that it had size, proportions, and skull configuration that were similar to captorhinids. Tuditanids have also developed an astragalus in the ankle (a reptilian feature) from the fusion of several other bones. In comparison to other microsaurs, tuditanids were short-bodied, with fewer than 30 presacral vertebrae. The limbs are large and well developed. Unlike other microsaurs such as gymnarthrids, the jaw articulation is at the posterior margin of the skull. The teeth are blunt and peg-like. Tuditanids are thought to have had a similar lifestyle to reptiles such as captorhinids. They were terrestrial and likely fed on insects and other small arthropods. The simila ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hylerpeton
''Hylerpeton'' is an extinct genus of leponspondyl amphibian belonging to the family Gymnarthridae from the late Carboniferous period. The nominal species ''"Hylerpeton" longidentatum'' Dawson, 1876 was considered possibly non-microsaurian by Steen (1934) and Carroll (1966), and was eventually recognized as a member of Aistopoda and renamed ''Andersonerpeton ''Andersonerpeton'' is an extinct genus of aïstopod from the Bashkirian (early Pennsylvanian) of Nova Scotia, Canada. It is known from a single jaw, which shares an unusual combination of features from both other aistopods and from stem-tetrap ... longidentatum'' by Pardo and Mann (2018) as the type species of a new genus.Jason D. Pardo and Arjan Mann, 2018. A basal aïstopod from the earliest Pennsylvanian of Canada, and the antiquity of the first limbless tetrapod lineage5Royal Society Open Science http://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.181056 References Gymnarthrids Carboniferous amphibians of North America Fossil tax ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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