''Coloraderpeton'' is an extinct
genus
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 nom ...
of
aïstopod tetrapodomorph
The Tetrapodomorpha (also known as Choanata) are a clade of vertebrates consisting of tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates) and their closest sarcopterygian relatives that are more closely related to living tetrapods than to living lungfish. Advance ...
s within the
family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
Oestocephalidae
Oestocephalidae is an extinct family of Late Carboniferous aistopod stegocephalians. Fossils have been found from Ohio, Illinois, and Colorado in the United States; England; and the Czech Republic. It includes the genera '' Coloraderpeton'' an ...
.
''Coloraderpeton'' is known from the
Carboniferous Sangre de Cristo Formation of
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
, and was initially known from vertebrae, ribs, and scales recovered from a
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
field expedition in 1966.
Peter Paul Vaughn described these remains in 1969.
A skull was later reported in an unpublished 1983 thesis and formally described by
Jason S. Anderson in 2003.
References
Aistopods
Carboniferous amphibians
Carboniferous amphibians of North America
Fossil taxa described in 1969
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