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Rhineceps
''Rhineceps'' is an extinct genus of temnospondyl amphibian in the family Rhinesuchidae. ''Rhineceps'' was found in Northern Malawi (formerly Nyasaland) in Southern Africa known only from its type species ''R. nyasaensis''. ''Rhineceps'' was a late Permian (256-258 Mya) semi-aquatic carnivore that lived in streams, rivers, lakes or lagoons. ''Rhineceps'' is an early divergent Stereopondyl within the family Rhinesuchidae, which only existed in the late Permian (Lopingian) and failed to survive the Permian-Triassic extinction unlike other stereospondyl families. History ''Rhineceps'' was originally discovered in the “Upper Bone Beds” of the Chiweta Beds, North Waller Area in Northern Malawi. The fossil was first described and named by Haughton in 1926, whereby he describes the fossil of a left mandibular ramus of ''R. nyasaensis'' as within the genus ''Rhinesuchus'' due to its similarity with the fossils of ''Rhinesuchus whaitsi.'' Watson later determined in a letter to P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhinesuchidae
Rhinesuchidae is a family of tetrapods that lived primarily in the Permian period. They belonged to the broad group Temnospondyli, a successful and diverse collection of semiaquatic tetrapods which modern amphibians are probably descended from. Rhinesuchids can be differentiated from other temnospondyls by details of their skulls, most notably the interior structure of their otic notches at the back of the skull. They were among the earliest-diverging members of the Stereospondyli, a subgroup of temnospondyls with flat heads and aquatic habits. Although more advanced stereospondyls evolved to reach worldwide distribution in the Triassic period, rhinesuchids primarily lived in the high-latitude environments of Gondwana (what is now South America and Africa) during the Guadalupian and Lopingian epochs of the Permian. The taxonomy of this family has been convoluted, with more than twenty species having been named in the past; a 2017 review recognized only eight of them (distributed a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lopingian
The Lopingian is the uppermost series/last epoch of the Permian. It is the last epoch of the Paleozoic. The Lopingian was preceded by the Guadalupian and followed by the Early Triassic. The Lopingian is often synonymous with the informal terms late Permian or upper Permian. The name was introduced by Amadeus William Grabau in 1931 and derives from Leping, Jiangxi in China. It consists of two stages/ ages. The earlier is the Wuchiapingian and the later is the Changhsingian. The International Chronostratigraphic Chart (v2018/07) provides a numerical age of 259.1 ±0.5 Ma. If a Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) has been approved, the lower boundary of the earliest stage determines numerical age of an epoch. The GSSP for the Wuchiapingian has a numerical age of 259.8 ± 0.4 Ma. Evidence from Milankovitch cycles suggests that the length of an Earth day during this epoch was approximately 22 hours. The Lopingian ended with the Permian–Triassic extinction event. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australerpeton
''Australerpeton'' is an extinct genus of stereospondylomorph temnospondyl currently believed to belong to the family Rhinesuchidae. When first named in 1998, the genus was placed within the new family Australerpetontidae. However, studies published a few years later questioned the systematics used in the original description and included the genus within Archegosauridae.Schoch, R. R. and Milner, A. R. (2000). ''Stereospondyli. Stem-stereospondyli, Rhinesuchidae, Rhytidostea, Trematosauroidea, Capitosauroidea''. Handbuch der paläoherpetologie Part 3B. 203p A study by Dias & Schultz (2003) reassigned ''Australerpeton'' to the family Rhinesuchidae within the suborder Stereospondyli based on an earlier evaluation of the family. In this study, the close similarities between ''Australerpeton'' and archegosaurids were attributed to convergent evolution as a result of similar semi-aquatic lifestyles. A redescription of the skeleton of this genus was published by Eltink & Langer in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labyrinthodontia
"Labyrinthodontia" (Greek, 'maze-toothed') is an informal grouping of extinct predatory amphibians which were major components of ecosystems in the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras (about 390 to 150 million years ago). Traditionally considered a subclass of the class Amphibia, modern classification systems recognize that labyrinthodonts are not a formal natural group (clade) exclusive of other tetrapods. Instead, they consistute an evolutionary grade (a paraphyletic group), ancestral to living tetrapods such as lissamphibians (modern amphibians) and amniotes (reptiles, mammals, and kin). "Labyrinthodont"-grade vertebrates evolved from lobe-finned fishes in the Devonian, though a formal boundary between fish and amphibian is difficult to define at this point in time. "Labyrinthodont" generally refers to extinct four-limbed tetrapods with a large body size and a crocodile-like lifestyle. The name describes the pattern of infolding of the dentin and enamel of the teeth, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giant Salamander
The Cryptobranchidae are a family of fully aquatic salamanders commonly known as the giant salamanders. They include the largest living amphibians. The family is native to China, Japan, and the eastern United States. They constitute one of two living families within the Cryptobranchoidea, one of two main divisions of living salamanders, the other being the Asiatic salamanders belonging to the family Hynobiidae. The largest species are in the genus ''Andrias,'' native to east Asia''.'' The South China giant salamander (''Andrias sligoi''), can reach a length of .Andrias davidianus AmphibiaWeb: Information on amphibian biology and conservation. 2012. Berkeley, California: AmphibiaWeb. Retrieved 13 December 2012. The |
Crocodilia
Crocodilia (or Crocodylia, both ) is an order of mostly large, predatory, semiaquatic reptiles, known as crocodilians. They first appeared 95 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period ( Cenomanian stage) and are the closest living relatives of birds, as the two groups are the only known survivors of the Archosauria. Members of the order's total group, the clade Pseudosuchia, appeared about 250 million years ago in the Early Triassic period, and diversified during the Mesozoic era. The order Crocodilia includes the true crocodiles (family Crocodylidae), the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), and the gharial and false gharial (family Gavialidae). Although the term 'crocodiles' is sometimes used to refer to all of these, crocodilians is a less ambiguous vernacular term for members of this group. Large, solidly built, lizard-like reptiles, crocodilians have long flattened snouts, laterally compressed tails, and eyes, ears, and nostrils at the top ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basal (phylogenetics)
In phylogenetics, basal is the direction of the ''base'' (or root) of a phylogenetic tree#Rooted tree, rooted phylogenetic tree or cladogram. The term may be more strictly applied only to nodes adjacent to the root, or more loosely applied to nodes regarded as being close to the root. Note that extant taxa that lie on branches connecting directly to the root are not more closely related to the root than any other extant taxa. While there must always be two or more equally "basal" clades sprouting from the root of every cladogram, those clades may differ widely in taxonomic rank, Phylogenetic diversity, species diversity, or both. If ''C'' is a basal clade within ''D'' that has the lowest rank of all basal clades within ''D'', ''C'' may be described as ''the'' basal taxon of that rank within ''D''. The concept of a 'key innovation' implies some degree of correlation between evolutionary innovation and cladogenesis, diversification. However, such a correlation does not make a given ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecological Niche
In ecology, a niche is the match of a species to a specific environmental condition. Three variants of ecological niche are described by It describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors (for example, by growing when resources are abundant, and when predators, parasites and pathogens are scarce) and how it in turn alters those same factors (for example, limiting access to resources by other organisms, acting as a food source for predators and a consumer of prey). "The type and number of variables comprising the dimensions of an environmental niche vary from one species to another ndthe relative importance of particular environmental variables for a species may vary according to the geographic and biotic contexts". See also Chapter 2: Concepts of niches, pp. 7 ''ff'' A Grinnellian niche is determined by the habitat in which a species lives and its accompanying behavioral adaptations. An Eltonian niche emphasizes that a spec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Early Triassic
The Early Triassic is the first of three epochs of the Triassic Period of the geologic timescale. It spans the time between Ma and Ma (million years ago). Rocks from this epoch are collectively known as the Lower Triassic Series, which is a unit in chronostratigraphy. The Early Triassic is the oldest epoch of the Mesozoic Era. It is preceded by the Lopingian Epoch (late Permian, Paleozoic Era) and followed by the Middle Triassic Epoch. The Early Triassic is divided into the Induan and Olenekian ages. The Induan is subdivided into the Griesbachian and Dienerian subages and the Olenekian is subdivided into the Smithian and Spathian subages. The Lower Triassic series is coeval with the Scythian Stage, which is today not included in the official timescales but can be found in older literature. In Europe, most of the Lower Triassic is composed of Buntsandstein, a lithostratigraphic unit of continental red beds. The Early Triassic and partly also the Middle Triassic span the in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stereospondylomorpha
Stereospondylomorpha is a clade of temnospondyls. It includes the superfamily Archegosauroidea and the more diverse group Stereospondyli. Stereospondylomorpha was first proposed by Yates and Warren (2000), who found Archegosauroidea and Stereospondyli to be sister taxa in their phylogenetic analysis. A similar clade is Archegosauriformes, named by Schoch and Milner (2000), which includes Stereospondyli and some Permian temnospondyls that are similar in appearance to stereospondyls, including the archegosauroids. However, according to Schoch and Milner's phylogeny, Archegosauroidea is a paraphyletic group of taxa that are successively basal to Stereospondyli, rather than a monophyletic sister taxon. ''Chinlestegophis'', a putative Triassic stereospondyl considered to be related to metoposauroids such as ''Rileymillerus'', has been noted to share many features with caecilian Caecilians (; ) are a group of limbless, vermiform or serpentine amphibians. They mostly live hidden ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adaptive Radiation
In evolutionary biology, adaptive radiation is a process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms, particularly when a change in the environment makes new resources available, alters biotic interactions or opens new environmental niches. Starting with a single ancestor, this process results in the speciation and phenotypic adaptation of an array of species exhibiting different morphological and physiological traits. The prototypical example of adaptive radiation is finch speciation on the Galapagos ("Darwin's finches"), but examples are known from around the world. Characteristics Four features can be used to identify an adaptive radiation: #A common ancestry of component species: specifically a ''recent'' ancestry. Note that this is not the same as a monophyly in which ''all'' descendants of a common ancestor are included. #A phenotype-environment correlation: a ''significant'' association between environments and the morp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhinesuchoides
''Rhinesuchoides'' is an extinct genus of prehistoric temnospondyl in the family Rhinesuchidae. It contains two species, ''R. tenuiceps'' and ''R. capensis'', both from the Karoo Supergroup of South Africa. The latter was formerly a species of ''Rhinesuchus''. See also * Prehistoric amphibian * List of prehistoric amphibians This list of prehistoric amphibians is an attempt to create a comprehensive listing of all Genus, genera from the fossil record that have ever been considered to be amphibians, excluding purely vernacular terms. The list includes all commonly accep ... References Stereospondyls {{temnospondyli-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
