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Scincosaurus
''Scincosaurus'' is an extinct genus of nectridean lepospondyl within the family Scincosauridae. History ''Scincosaurus crassus'' was first described by Bohemian paleontologist Antonín Frič in volume 1875 of "''Sitzungsberichte der königlichen Böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Prague''", which at that time was the premiere scientific journal of Bohemia (the modern day Czech Republic). Frič's contribution to this volume was a list of Carboniferous animals he and his associates recently discovered at coal gas mines near the localities of Nýřany and Kounová. His list included short preliminary descriptions for many new genera and species of tetrapods, including '' Microbrachis, Branchiosaurus, Hyloplesion'' (at that time called ''Stelliosaurus''), and ''Sparodus.'' ''Scincosaurus crassus'' was among the new tetrapods from Nýřany, and its short description (erroneously) considered it a robust lacertilian ( lizard), possibly related to ''Sparodus''. A m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scincosauridae
The Scincosauridae are an extinct family of nectridean lepospondyl 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 Per ... amphibians. It includes the genera '' Scincosaurus'' and '' Sauravus''. Unlike most other nectrideans, scincosaurids are thought to have been terrestrial. References Carboniferous amphibians Pennsylvanian first appearances Pennsylvanian extinctions Holospondyls {{carboniferous-animal-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nectridea
Nectridea is the name of an extinct order of lepospondyl tetrapods from the Carboniferous and Permian periods, including animals such as ''Diplocaulus''. In appearance, they would have resembled modern newts or aquatic salamanders, although they are not close relatives of modern amphibians. They were characterized by long, flattened tails to aid in swimming, as well as numerous features of the vertebrae. Description Nectrideans are a diverse group of tetrapods, including the aquatic Urocordylidae, the presumably terrestrial Scincosauridae, and the bizarre horned members of Diplocaulidae (also known as Keraterpetonidae), which includes the "boomerang-headed" ''Diplocaulus'', one of the most famous genera of prehistoric amphibians (in the traditional sense of the word). By the time the earliest known nectrideans appeared in the Late Carboniferous fossil record, they had already diversified into these families, indicating that basal nectrideans are unknown. These different famili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microsauria
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] |
Lepospondyl
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] |
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] |
Ball And Socket Joint
The ball-and-socket joint (or spheroid joint) is a type of synovial joint in which the ball-shaped surface of one rounded bone fits into the cup-like depression of another bone. The distal bone is capable of motion around an indefinite number of axes, which have one common center. This enables the joint to move in many directions. An enarthrosis is a special kind of spheroidal joint in which the socket covers the sphere beyond its equator.Platzer, Werner (2008) ''Color Atlas of Human Anatomy'', Volume 1p.28/ref> Examples Examples of this form of articulation are found in the hip, where the round head of the femur (ball) rests in the cup-like acetabulum (socket) of the pelvis; and in the shoulder joint, where the rounded upper extremity of the humerus (ball) rests in the cup-like glenoid fossa (socket) of the shoulder blade.And the phalanges (toes, fingers)Introduction to Joints: Synovial Joints - Ball and Socket Joints (The shoulder also includes a sternoclavicular joint ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otto Jaekel
Otto Max Johannes Jaekel (21 February 1863 – 6 March 1929) was a German paleontologist and geologist. Biography Jaekel was born in Neusalz (Nowa Sól), Prussian Silesia, the son of a builder and the youngest of seven children. He studied at the ''Ritterakademie'' in Liegnitz (Legnica). After graduating in 1883, he came to study geology and paleontology under Ferdinand Roemer in Breslau (Wrocław) until 1885. Karl von Zittel awarded a PhD to Jaekel in Munich in 1886. Between 1887 and 1889, Jaekel was an assistant of E.W. Benecke at the Geologisch-Paläontologisches Institut in Straßburg, where he received his Habilitation. He worked at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin and at the Geologisch-Paläontologisches Museum (a combined post) from 1894. Jaekel was considered as an ordinary professor of geology at the University of Vienna in 1903, but this was blocked by intrigue. Between 1906 and 1928, Jaekel was a professor at the University of Greifswald, where he fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scapula
The scapula (plural scapulae or scapulas), also known as the shoulder blade, is the bone that connects the humerus (upper arm bone) with the clavicle (collar bone). Like their connected bones, the scapulae are paired, with each scapula on either side of the body being roughly a mirror image of the other. The name derives from the Classical Latin word for trowel or small shovel, which it was thought to resemble. In compound terms, the prefix omo- is used for the shoulder blade in medical terminology. This prefix is derived from ὦμος (ōmos), the Ancient Greek word for shoulder, and is cognate with the Latin , which in Latin signifies either the shoulder or the upper arm bone. The scapula forms the back of the shoulder girdle. In humans, it is a flat bone, roughly triangular in shape, placed on a posterolateral aspect of the thoracic cage. Structure The scapula is a thick, flat bone lying on the thoracic wall that provides an attachment for three groups of muscles: intrin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Urocordylidae
The Urocordylidae are an extinct family (biology), family of nectridean lepospondyl amphibians. Urocordylids lived during the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian in what is now Europe and North America and are characterized by their very long, paddle-like tails. In life, they were probably newt-like and aquatic. Fossils have been found from Ireland, France, and the eastern United States. The family was named by English naturalist Richard Lydekker in 1889 and includes the well-known genera ''Urocordylus'' and ''Sauropleura'', as well as several others based on less-complete material. The family Urocordylidae is divided into two subfamilies, the Urocordylinae and the Sauropleurinae. The two groups are distinguished by the shapes of their skulls; urocordylines have short, blunt skulls, and sauropleurines have longer, pointed skulls. Description Urocordylids are distinguished by their elongated tails. Each tail vertebra has an upper crest of bone called a neural arch and a lower cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ophiderpetontidae
''Ophiderpeton'' (from el, ὄφῐς , 'snake' and el, ἑρπετόν 'creeper') is an extinct genus of aistopod tetrapodomorphs from the early Carboniferous to the early Permian. Remains of this genus are widespread and were found in Ohio, United States, Ireland, and the Czech Republic (Central Europe). Like other aistopods, ''Ophiderpeton'' was snake-like, without any trace of limbs. Its body was about long, with 230 vertebrae. The skull measured , and large, forward-facing eyes, suggesting a hunting lifestyle. It probably lived in burrows, feeding on insects, worms, millipedes, and snails. Many species are classified in the genus, and similar animals, ''Phlegethontia'' and ''Sillerpeton'', are known. An earlier genus, ''Lethiscus'', is known from the Carboniferous and Early 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 Trias ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Class (biology)
In biological classification, class ( la, classis) is a taxonomic rank, as well as a taxonomic unit, a taxon, in that rank. It is a group of related taxonomic orders. Other well-known ranks in descending order of size are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, order, family, genus, and species, with class fitting between phylum and order. History The class as a distinct rank of biological classification having its own distinctive name (and not just called a ''top-level genus'' ''(genus summum)'') was first introduced by the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in his classification of plants that appeared in his ''Eléments de botanique'', 1694. Insofar as a general definition of a class is available, it has historically been conceived as embracing taxa that combine a distinct ''grade'' of organization—i.e. a 'level of complexity', measured in terms of how differentiated their organ systems are into distinct regions or sub-organs—with a distinct ''type'' of construction, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linnaean Taxonomy
Linnaean taxonomy can mean either of two related concepts: # The particular form of biological classification (taxonomy) set up by Carl Linnaeus, as set forth in his ''Systema Naturae'' (1735) and subsequent works. In the taxonomy of Linnaeus there are three kingdoms, divided into ''classes'', and they, in turn, into lower ranks in a hierarchical order. # A term for rank-based classification of organisms, in general. That is, taxonomy in the traditional sense of the word: rank-based scientific classification. This term is especially used as opposed to cladistic systematics, which groups organisms into clades. It is attributed to Linnaeus, although he neither invented the concept of ranked classification (it goes back to Plato and Aristotle) nor gave it its present form. In fact, it does not have an exact present form, as "Linnaean taxonomy" as such does not really exist: it is a collective (abstracting) term for what actually are several separate fields, which use similar approac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
