Eucritta
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Eucritta
''Eucritta'' (meaning "true creature") is an extinct genus of stem-tetrapod from the Viséan epoch in the Carboniferous period of Scotland. The name of the type and only species, ''E. melanolimnetes'' ("true creature from the black lagoon") is a homage to the 1954 horror film ''Creature from the Black Lagoon''. ''Eucritta'' possessed many features in common with other generalized Carboniferous tetrapods and tetrapod relatives. A large amount of these features were plesiomorphic, meaning that they resembled the "primitive" condition that was acquired when four-limbed vertebrates ("amphibians", in the broad sense) first appeared. With a short, wide skull, large eyes, and strongly-built limbs, ''Eucritta'' proportionally resembled ''Balanerpeton'', a contemporary terrestrial tetrapod which was one of the earliest members of Temnospondyli, a successful tetrapod group which may have produced modern amphibians. However, ''Eucritta'' lacked key temnospondyl adaptations, nor certain adap ...
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Eucritta Skull Diagram
''Eucritta'' (meaning "true creature") is an extinct genus of stem-tetrapod from the Viséan epoch in the Carboniferous period of Scotland. The name of the type and only species, ''E. melanolimnetes'' ("true creature from the black lagoon") is a homage to the 1954 horror film ''Creature from the Black Lagoon''. ''Eucritta'' possessed many features in common with other generalized Carboniferous tetrapods and tetrapod relatives. A large amount of these features were plesiomorphic, meaning that they resembled the "primitive" condition that was acquired when four-limbed vertebrates ("amphibians", in the broad sense) first appeared. With a short, wide skull, large eyes, and strongly-built limbs, ''Eucritta'' proportionally resembled ''Balanerpeton'', a contemporary terrestrial tetrapod which was one of the earliest members of Temnospondyli, a successful tetrapod group which may have produced modern amphibians. However, ''Eucritta'' lacked key temnospondyl adaptations, nor certain adap ...
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Stan Wood (fossil Hunter)
Stan Wood was a self-taught fossil hunter who dazzled the academic world with his ability to make significant palaeontological discoveries at scale and is arguably most celebrated for refocusing attention on early Carboniferous palaeobiology as the means to closing Romer's gap. Life and works Born Stanley Wood in Edinburgh, 1939, Wood left school aged 14 to work as a dockyard apprentice at Leith Harbour during a period of severe economic hardship, when Leith had acquired the reputation as one of the roughest neighbourhoods in post-war Britain. Wood could put his hand to many things and served in the Merchant Navy as an engineering officer for a time, before being assigned to work for Brown Brothers, an engineering company. He was encouraged to consider white-collar work and changed career to sell insurance with the Prudential. From fossil hunter to palaeontologist As a boy, Wood had been fascinated by Roman Britain, and was convinced that he could calculate the existence of ...
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Temnospondyli
Temnospondyli (from Greek τέμνειν, ''temnein'' 'to cut' and σπόνδυλος, ''spondylos'' 'vertebra') is a diverse order of small to giant tetrapods—often considered primitive amphibians—that flourished worldwide during the Carboniferous, Permian, and Triassic periods. A few species continued into the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Fossils have been found on every continent. During about 210 million years of evolutionary history, they adapted to a wide range of habitats, including freshwater, terrestrial, and even coastal marine environments. Their life history is well understood, with fossils known from the larval stage, metamorphosis, and maturity. Most temnospondyls were semiaquatic, although some were almost fully terrestrial, returning to the water only to breed. These temnospondyls were some of the first vertebrates fully adapted to life on land. Although temnospondyls are considered amphibians, many had characteristics, such as scales and armour-like bon ...
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Jenny Clack
Jennifer Alice Clack, (''née'' Agnew; 3 November 1947 – 26 March 2020) was an English palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist. She specialised in the early evolution of tetrapods, specifically studying the "fish to tetrapod" transition: the origin, evolutionary development and radiation of early tetrapods and their relatives among the lobe-finned fishes. She is best known for her book ''Gaining Ground: the Origin and Early Evolution of Tetrapods'', published in 2002 (second edition, 2012) and written with the layperson in mind. Clack was curator at the Museum of Zoology and Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Cambridge, where she devoted her career to studying the early development of tetrapods, the "four-legged" animals said to have evolved from Devonian lobe-finned fishes and colonised the freshwater swamps of the Carboniferous period. Early life and education Clack was born on 3 November 1947, the only child of Ernest and Alice Agnew. She was b ...
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Baphetidae
Baphetidae is an extinct family of early tetrapods. Baphetids were large labyrinthodont predators of the Late Carboniferous period (Namurian through Westphalian) of Europe. Fragmentary remains from the Early Carboniferous of Canada have been tentatively assigned to the group. The phylogenetic relationships of baphetids is uncertain; while many studies have placed the group as a close relative of Amniota, other analyses have found Baphetidae to be a more basal clade of early stem tetrapods. Baphetids were among the first of the Carboniferous fossil tetrapods to be found and were originally described in 1850 by John William Dawson. The baphetids have been referred to the family Loxommatidae, but this group was later shown to be a junior synonym of Baphetidae, which was named earlier in 1865. Baphetids are known mainly from skulls; very little postcranial material has been found. Palaeobiology The presence of lateral lines and the long rows of needle-like teeth show that most were f ...
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Viséan
The Visean, Viséan or Visian is an age in the ICS geologic timescale or a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the second stage of the Mississippian, the lower subsystem of the Carboniferous. The Visean lasted from to Ma. It follows the Tournaisian age/stage and is followed by the Serpukhovian age/stage. Name and definitions The Viséan Stage was introduced by Belgian geologist André Dumont in 1832. Dumont named this stage after the city of Visé in Belgium's Liège Province. Before being used as an international stage, the Visean Stage was part of the (West) European regional geologic time scale, in which it followed the Tournaisian Stage and is followed by the Namurian Stage. In the North American regional scale, the Visean Stage correlates with the upper Osagean, the Meramecian and lower Chesterian stages. In the Chinese regional time scale, it correlates with the lower and middle Tatangian series.; 2006: ''Global time scale and regional stratigraphic reference sca ...
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Devonian
The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied. The first significant adaptive radiation of life on dry land occurred during the Devonian. Free-sporing vascular plants began to spread across dry land, forming extensive forests which covered the continents. By the middle of the Devonian, several groups of plants had evolved leaves and true roots, and by the end of the period the first seed-bearing plants appeared. The arthropod groups of myriapods, arachnids and hexapods also became well-established early in this period, after starting their expansion to land at least from the Ordovician period. Fish reached substantial diversity during this time, leading the Devonian to often be dubbed the Age of Fishes. The placoderms began dominating ...
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Loxomma
''Loxomma'' (meaning “slanting eyes”) is an extinct genus of Loxommatinae and one of the first Carboniferous tetrapods. They were first described in 1862 and further described in 1870 when two more craniums were found. It is mostly associated with the area of the United Kingdom. They share features with modern reptiles as well as with fish. They had 4 paddle-like limbs that they used to swim in lakes, but they breathed air. Their diet consisted mostly of live fish. They are of the family Baphetidae which are distinguished by their keyhole shaped orbits, while ''Loxomma'' themselves are distinguished by the unique texture on their skulls, said to be honeycomb-like. History and discovery The genus ''Loxomma'' was discovered and named by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1862 via a near perfect cranium, a vertebra and a rib in the Lanarkshire coal-field of Scotland. The family Baphetidae were among the first Carboniferous tetrapods to be found and were first described by William Da ...
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Orbit (anatomy)
In anatomy, the orbit is the cavity or socket of the skull in which the eye and its appendages are situated. "Orbit" can refer to the bony socket, or it can also be used to imply the contents. In the adult human, the volume of the orbit is , of which the eye occupies . The orbital contents comprise the eye, the orbital and retrobulbar fascia, extraocular muscles, cranial nerves II, III, IV, V, and VI, blood vessels, fat, the lacrimal gland with its sac and duct, the eyelids, medial and lateral palpebral ligaments, cheek ligaments, the suspensory ligament, septum, ciliary ganglion and short ciliary nerves. Structure The orbits are conical or four-sided pyramidal cavities, which open into the midline of the face and point back into the head. Each consists of a base, an apex and four walls."eye, human."Encyclopædia Britannica from Encyclopædia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD 2009 Openings There are two important foramina, or windows, two important fissu ...
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National Museum Of Scotland
The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the adjacent Royal Scottish Museum (opened in 1866 as the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, renamed in 1904, and for the period between 1985 and the merger named the Royal Museum of Scotland or simply the Royal Museum), with international collections covering science and technology, natural history, and world cultures. The two connected buildings stand beside each other on Chambers Street, by the intersection with the George IV Bridge, in central Edinburgh. The museum is part of National Museums Scotland. Admission is free. The two buildings retain distinctive characters: the Museum of Scotland is housed in a modern building opened in 1998, while the former Royal Museum building was begun in 1861 and partially opened in 1866, with a Victorian Venetian Renaissance facade and a gr ...
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Holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several examples, but explicitly designated as the holotype. Under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), a holotype is one of several kinds of name-bearing types. In the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) and ICZN, the definitions of types are similar in intent but not identical in terminology or underlying concept. For example, the holotype for the butterfly '' Plebejus idas longinus'' is a preserved specimen of that subspecies, held by the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. In botany, an isotype is a duplicate of the holotype, where holotype and isotypes are often pieces from the same individual plant or samples from the same gathering. A holotype is not necessarily "typ ...
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Cambridge University Museum Of Zoology
The University Museum of Zoology is a museum of the University of Cambridge and part of the research community of the Department of Zoology. The public is welcome and admission is free (2018). The Museum of Zoology is in the David Attenborough Building (formerly known as the Arup Building) on the New Museums Site, just north of Downing Street in central Cambridge, England. The building also provides a home for the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, a biodiversity project. The museum houses an extensive collection of scientifically important zoological material. The collections were designated in 1998 by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (now managed by the Arts Council England) as being of outstanding historical and international importance. The museum reopened on 23 June 2018 after a major redevelopment for which it had been awarded a grant of £1.8m by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The redevelopment aimed to create a "green" building" and to create displays and new i ...
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