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Pareiasaurids
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] |
Scutosaurus
''Scutosaurus'' ("shield lizard") is an extinct genus of pareiasaur parareptiles. Its genus name refers to large plates of armor scattered across its body. It was a large anapsid reptile that, unlike most reptiles, held its legs underneath its body to support its great weight. Fossils have been found in the Sokolki Assemblage Zone of the Malokinelskaya Formation in European Russia, close to the Ural Mountains, dating to the late Permian (Lopingian) between 264 and 252 million years ago. Research history The first fossils were uncovered by Russian paleontologist Vladimir Prokhorovich Amalitskii while documenting plant and animal species in the Upper Permian sediments in the Northern Dvina River, Arkhangelsk District, Northern European Russia. Amalitskii had discovered the site in 1899, and he and his wife Anne Amalitskii continued to oversee excavation until 1914, recovering numerous nearly complete and articulated (in their natural position) skeletons belonging to a menage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deltavjatia
''Deltavjatia'' was a pareiasauromorph procolophonoid from the Tatarian stage of the Permian time period. It had a large body of about in length. ''Deltavjatia'' was an herbivore and lived in what is now Russia. The first specimen of ''Deltavjatia'' was a specimen of a skull and lower mandible (PIN 2212/1), found in the Urpalov Formation in Kotelnich, Vyatka River. Since then, numerous mostly complete skeletons have been found, many of them being so well preserved due to the silty, anaerobic environment of the Kotelnich deposits that fossilised white blood cells are able to be distinguished in them. Analyses of the bone histology of ''Deltavjatia'' show that they grew very rapidly during the early stages of their ontogeny but that their growth rate drastically slowed down once they reached approximately half of their full body size. ''Deltavjatia'' was placed as a subtaxon of Pareiasauridae by M.S.Y. Lee in 1997. See also *Pareiasaur *Procolophonia *Kotelnich *Vyatka (river) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Permian
The Guadalupian is the second and middle series/epoch of the Permian. The Guadalupian was preceded by the Cisuralian and followed by the Lopingian. It is named after the Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico and Texas, and dates between 272.95 ± 0.5 – 259.1 ± 0.4 Mya. The series saw the rise of the therapsids, a minor extinction event called Olson's Extinction and a significant mass extinction called the end-Capitanian extinction event. The Guadalupian was previously known as the Middle Permian. Name and background The Guadalupian is the second and middle series or epoch of the Permian. Previously called Middle Permian, the name of this epoch is part of a revision of Permian stratigraphy for standard global correlation. The name "Guadalupian" was first proposed in the early 1900s, and approved by the International Subcommission on Permian Stratigraphy in 1996. References to the Middle Permian still exist. The Guadalupian was preceded by the Cisuralian and followed by the Lop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shihtienfenia
''Shihtienfenia'' was a pareiasaurid parareptile from the Late Permian of China. Species Lee (1997) refers to ''S. xuecunensis'' as a metaspecies lacking the autapomorphies of ''Shihtienfenia''. Tsuji & Müller (2009) seem to consider it a valid taxon for cladistic analysis, and like Lee 1997 place the two Chinese species close to '' Pareiasuchus''. ''S. permica'' (Young and Yeh, 1963); The skull of this pareiasaur is unknown. It is known originally from a number of isolated vertebrae, jaws, and limb-bones and an incomplete skeleton, all from the Shiqianfeng locality near Baode, Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ..., part of the Sunjiagou Formation. ''Shanshisaurus xuecunensis'' Cheng, 1980 and ''Huanghesaurus liuliensis'' Gao, 1983 are synonyms. ''S. comple ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caseidae
Caseidae are an extinct family of basal synapsids that lived from the Late Carboniferous to Middle Permian between about 300 and 265 million years ago. Fossils of these animals come from the south-central part of the United States (Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas), from various parts of Europe (European Russia, France, Germany, Sardinia, and Poland), and possibly from South Africa if the genus ''Eunotosaurus'' is indeed a caseid as some authors proposed in 2021. Caseids show great taxonomic and morphological diversity. The most basal taxa were small insectivorous and omnivorous forms that lived mainly in the Upper Carboniferous and Lower Permian, such as ''Eocasea'', ''Callibrachion'', and '' Martensius''. This type of caseid persists until the middle Permian with ''Phreatophasma'' and may be ''Eunotosaurus''. During the early Permian, the clade is mainly represented by many species that adopted a herbivorous diet. Some have evolved into gigantic forms that can reach in length, such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iguana
''Iguana'' (, ) is a genus of herbivorous lizards that are native to tropical areas of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The genus was first described in 1768 by Austrian naturalist Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti in his book ''Specimen Medicum, Exhibens Synopsin Reptilium Emendatam cum Experimentis circa Venena''. Two species are placed in the genus, the green iguana, which is widespread throughout its range and a popular pet, and the Lesser Antillean iguana, which is native to the Lesser Antilles. Genetic analysis indicates that the green iguana may comprise a complex of multiple species, some of which have been recently described, but the Reptile Database considers all of these as subspecies of the green iguana. The word "iguana" is derived from the original Taino name for the species, ''iwana''. In addition to the two species in the genus ''Iguana'', several other related genera in the same family have common names of the species including the word "ig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osteoderm
Osteoderms are bony deposits forming scales, plates, or other structures based in the dermis. Osteoderms are found in many groups of extant and extinct reptiles and amphibians, including lizards, crocodilians, frogs, temnospondyls (extinct amphibians), various groups of dinosaurs (most notably ankylosaurs and stegosaurians), phytosaurs, aetosaurs, placodonts, and hupehsuchians (marine reptiles with possible ichthyosaur affinities). Osteoderms are uncommon in mammals, although they have occurred in many xenarthrans (armadillos and the extinct glyptodonts and mylodontid and scelidotheriid ground sloths). The heavy, bony osteoderms have evolved independently in many different lineages. The armadillo osteoderm is believed to develop in subcutaneous dermal tissues. These varied structures should be thought of as anatomical analogues, not homologues, and do not necessarily indicate monophyly. The structures are however derived from scutes, common to all classes of amniotes and ... [...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] |
Bradysaurus BW
''Bradysaurus'' was a large, early and common pareiasaur, the fossils of which are known from the ''Tapinocephalus'' Assemblage Zone (Capitanian age) of the South African Karoo. Along with the similarly large dinocephalia, the bradysaurs constituted the herbivorous megafauna of the late Middle Permian Period. In life they were probably slow, clumsy and inoffensive animals, that had evolved a covering of armoured scutes to protect them against their predators, the gorgonopsians. Description ''Bradysaurus'' was in length and half a tonne to a tonne in weight. The skull was large (about 42 to 48 centimeters long), broad and rounded at the front. It was coarsely sculptured and knobby, with the sutures between the bones not clearly visible. The marginal teeth were high-crowned, with only a few cusps, which is a primitive characteristic. The feet were short and broad, the phalangeal count being 2,3,3,3,2 on the fore-foot and 2,3,3,4,3 on the hind. The whole body is protect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Therapsid
Therapsida is a major group of eupelycosaurian synapsids that includes mammals, their ancestors and relatives. Many of the traits today seen as unique to mammals had their origin within early therapsids, including limbs that were oriented more underneath the body, as opposed to the sprawling posture of many reptiles and salamanders. Therapsids evolved from "pelycosaurs", specifically within the Sphenacodontia, more than 279.5 million years ago. They replaced the "pelycosaurs" as the dominant large land animals in the Middle Permian through to the Early Triassic. In the aftermath of the Permian–Triassic extinction event, therapsids declined in relative importance to the rapidly diversifying reptiles during the Middle Triassic. The therapsids include the cynodonts, the group that gave rise to mammals ( Mammaliaformes) in the Late Triassic, around 225 million years ago. Of the non-mammalian therapsids, only cynodonts survived beyond the end of the Triassic, with the only other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pangaea
Pangaea or Pangea () was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous approximately 335 million years ago, and began to break apart about 200 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic and beginning of the Jurassic. In contrast to the present Earth and its distribution of continental mass, Pangaea was centred on the equator and surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa and the Paleo-Tethys Ocean, Paleo-Tethys and subsequent Tethys Ocean, Tethys Oceans. Pangaea is the most recent supercontinent to have existed and the first to be reconstructed by geologists. Origin of the concept The name "Pangaea" is derived from Ancient Greek ''pan'' (, "all, entire, whole") and ''Gaia (mythology), Gaia'' or Gaea (, "Mother goddess, Mother Earth, land"). The concept that the continents once formed a contiguous land mass was hypothesised, with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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