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Nanopareia
''Nanoparia'' is an extinct genus of pareiasaur that lived in the Permian. Description It was about 60 cm in length, and weighed around 8 to 10 kilograms. Classification This is an unusual small, spiny specialised form. The skull is very similar to that of Pareiasaurus and Romer considered it a synonym of the latter. Orlov however (in Osnovy Paleontology, the monumental multi-volume Russian textbook of Paleontology) placed it in the Elginiinae. Kuhn (1969) however argues that while resembling Elginia in the ossifications at the rear of the skull, it differs completely in proportions and would not seem to be related. Lee (1997) considers it a basal member of the dwarf pareiasaurs. ''Nanoparia'' is believed to be among the pareiasaur genera most closely related to turtles Turtles are an order (biology), order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special turtle shell, shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pareiasaur
Pareiasaurs (meaning "cheek lizards") are an extinct clade of large, herbivorous parareptiles. Members of the group were armoured with scutes which covered large areas of the body. They first appeared in southern Pangea during the Middle Permian, before becoming globally distributed during the Late Permian. Pareiasaurs were the largest reptiles of the Permian, reaching sizes equivalent to those of contemporary therapsids. Pareiasaurs became extinct at the end of the Permian during the Permian-Triassic extinction event. Description Pareiasaurs ranged in size from long, and may have weighed up to . They were stocky, with short tails, small heads, robust limbs, and broad feet. The cow-sized species '' Bunostegos'', which lived 260 million years ago, is the earliest known example of a tetrapod with a fully erect posture as its legs were positioned directly under its body. Pareiasaurs were protected by bony scutes called osteoderms that were set into the skin. Their heavy skulls wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pareiasaurs
Pareiasaurs (meaning "cheek lizards") are an extinct clade of large, herbivorous parareptiles. Members of the group were armoured with scutes which covered large areas of the body. They first appeared in southern Pangea during the Middle Permian, before becoming globally distributed during the Late Permian. Pareiasaurs were the largest reptiles of the Permian, reaching sizes equivalent to those of contemporary therapsids. Pareiasaurs became extinct at the end of the Permian during the Permian-Triassic extinction event. Description Pareiasaurs ranged in size from long, and may have weighed up to . They were stocky, with short tails, small heads, robust limbs, and broad feet. The cow-sized species ''Bunostegos'', which lived 260 million years ago, is the earliest known example of a tetrapod with a fully erect posture as its legs were positioned directly under its body. Pareiasaurs were protected by bony scutes called osteoderms that were set into the skin. Their heavy skulls were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pumiliopareiasauria
Velosauria is a group of Pareiasauria, pareiasaur Sauropsida, reptiles that existed in the late Permian period. They ranged in size from the 50-centimeter-long ''Pumiliopareia'' to the 3-meter-long ''Scutosaurus''. Velosaurs were some of the largest reptiles of their time. Description Velosaurs were large reptiles that were characterized by their short tails, small heads, broad feet, and their legs, which were directly in between sprawling and semi-erect. Velosaurs' bodies were covered in osteoderms and smaller scales all over. Their heads came in all sorts of different shapes; from the cheek-frilled ''Scutosaurus'' to the spiky-headed ''Elginia'' to the nose-horned ''Arganaceras''. They were herbivorous, and it is believed that their large bodies housed a complex gut. Classification Some paleontologists believe velosaurs to be the direct ancestors to turtles. They argue that the smaller Pumiliopareiasauria, pumiliopareiasaurs evolved large, plate-like scutes that laid flat on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nanoparia BW
''Nanoparia'' is an extinct genus of pareiasaur that lived in the Permian. Description It was about 60 cm in length, and weighed around 8 to 10 kilograms. Classification This is an unusual small, spiny specialised form. The skull is very similar to that of Pareiasaurus and Romer considered it a synonym of the latter. Orlov however (in Osnovy Paleontology, the monumental multi-volume Russian textbook of Paleontology) placed it in the Elginiinae. Kuhn (1969) however argues that while resembling Elginia in the ossifications at the rear of the skull, it differs completely in proportions and would not seem to be related. Lee (1997) considers it a basal member of the dwarf pareiasaurs. ''Nanoparia'' is believed to be among the pareiasaur genera most closely related to turtles Turtles are an order (biology), order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special turtle shell, shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Permian Reptiles Of Africa
The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era; the following Triassic Period belongs to the Mesozoic Era. The concept of the Permian was introduced in 1841 by geologist Sir Roderick Murchison, who named it after the region of Perm in Russia. The Permian witnessed the diversification of the two groups of amniotes, the synapsids and the sauropsids (reptiles). The world at the time was dominated by the supercontinent Pangaea, which had formed due to the collision of Euramerica and Gondwana during the Carboniferous. Pangaea was surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa. The Carboniferous rainforest collapse left behind vast regions of desert within the continental interior. Amniotes, which could better cope with these drier conditions, rose to dominance in place of their amphibian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turtles
Turtles are an order (biology), order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special turtle shell, shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked turtles), which differ in the way the head retracts. There are 360 living and recently extinct species of turtles, including land-dwelling tortoises and freshwater terrapins. They are found on most continents, some islands and, in the case of sea turtles, much of the ocean. Like other Amniote, amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals) they breathe air and do not lay eggs underwater, although many species live in or around water. Turtle shells are made mostly of bone; the upper part is the domed Turtle shell#Carapace, carapace, while the underside is the flatter plastron or belly-plate. Its outer surface is covered in scale (anatomy), scales made of keratin, the material of hair, horns, and claws. The carapace bon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below 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 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 of an ancestral taxon are grouped together (i.e. phylogenetic analysis should clearly demons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elginia
''Elginia'' is an extinct genus of pareiasaurid known from the Late Permian of Scotland and China. It was named for the area around Elgin in Scotland, which has yielded many fossils referred to as the Elgin Reptiles. Discovery The type species of ''Elginia, Elginia mirabilis,'' was first described in 1893 by E.T. Newton, after fellow geologists John Horne and Archibald Geikie informed him of several unusual specimens stored at the Elgin Museum in Scotland. The specimens were collected several years earlier from the coarse sandstones of the nearby Cutties Hillock Quarry. The quarry’s sandstone, the Cutties Hillock Sandstone Formation, is often (but not always) considered equivalent to the otherwise fossil-poor Hopeman Sandstone Formation of broader Scottish geology. Tetrapod remains occupy a narrow section of the sandstone, lying above a pebbly layer. The sandstones of Cutties Hillock were deposited at the very end of the Permian Period, based on a dicynodont fauna simi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pareiasaurus
''Pareiasaurus'' is an extinct genus of pareiasauromorph reptile from the Permian period. It was a typical member of its family, the pareiasaurids, which take their name from this genus. Fossils have been found in the Beaufort Group. Description ''Pareiasaurus'' is a large quadruped, about long, with elephantine legs, walking in a typically reptilian posture. The skull is broad and the snout short. Its skull had several spine- and wart-like protrusions. ''Pareiasauruss leaf-shaped teeth, ideal for biting through tough plant fibers, indicate it was a herbivore. Even the palate The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sepa ... had teeth. Species ''P. nasicornis'' (Haughton and Boonstra, 1929) is from the ''Tropidostoma'' Zone, Karoo basin, South Africa. This early form is one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Changhsingian
In the geologic time scale, the Changhsingian or Changxingian is the latest age or uppermost stage of the Permian. It is also the upper or latest of two subdivisions of the Lopingian Epoch or Series. The Changhsingian lasted from to 251.902 million years ago (Ma). It was preceded by the Wuchiapingian and followed by the Induan. The greatest mass extinction in the Phanerozoic eon, the Permian–Triassic extinction event, occurred during this age. The extinction rate peaked about a million years before the end of this stage. Stratigraphic definitions The Changhsingian is named after Changxing () in northern Zhejiang, China. The stage was named for the Changhsing Limestone. The name was first used for a stage in 1970; 1973: ''Permian stages names'', in: : ''The Permian and Triassic systems and their mutual boundary'', Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists Memoir 2, pp 522–548. and was anchored in the international timescale in 1981.; 2006: ''The Global Boundary Stratotype Sect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Permian
The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era; the following Triassic Period belongs to the Mesozoic Era. The concept of the Permian was introduced in 1841 by geologist Sir Roderick Murchison, who named it after the region of Perm in Russia. The Permian witnessed the diversification of the two groups of amniotes, the synapsids and the sauropsids ( reptiles). The world at the time was dominated by the supercontinent Pangaea, which had formed due to the collision of Euramerica and Gondwana during the Carboniferous. Pangaea was surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa. The Carboniferous rainforest collapse left behind vast regions of desert within the continental interior. Amniotes, which could better cope with these drier conditions, rose to dominance in place of their am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
