''Eupelor'' is a dubious genus of prehistoric

amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...

belonging to the temnospondyl family

Metoposauridae Metoposauridae is an extinct family of trematosaurian temnospondyls. The family is known from the Triassic period. Most members are large, approximately long and could reach 3 m long.Brusatte, S. L., Butler R. J., Mateus O., & Steyer S. J. (201 ...

. Fossils have been found in present-day Pennsylvania, within the

Newark Supergroup The Newark Supergroup, also known as the Newark Group, is an assemblage of Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic sedimentary rocks which outcrop intermittently along the United States East Coast. They were deposited in a series of Triassic basins app ...

, dating to the

Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch ...

(

Norian The Norian is a division of the Triassic Period. It has the rank of an age (geochronology) or stage (chronostratigraphy). It lasted from ~227 to million years ago. It was preceded by the Carnian and succeeded by the Rhaetian. Stratigraphic defi ...

Taxonomy

The ''Eupelor'' type species, ''E. durus'', was named ''Mastodonsaurus durus'' by

Edward Drinker Cope Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontologist, comparative anatomist, herpetologist, and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested ...

in 1866 on the basis of AMNH 3927, a number of clavicles and the tooth AMNH 2333 (which could have belonged to a different temnospondyl apart from ''Eupelor''), from the

Lockatong Formation The Triassic Lockatong Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. It is named after the Lockatong Creek in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Description The Lockatong is defined as a light to dark gray, greenish-gra ...

(Phoenixville Tunnel site) of

Phoenixville, Pennsylvania Phoenixville is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia at the junction of French Creek (Schuylkill River tributary), French Creek and ...

. In 1868 Cope allocated the species to its own genus, ''Eupelor'', based on differences from ''Metoposaurus'' (then known as ''Metopias''). Colbert and Imbrie (1956) reviewed all Triassic metoposaurids and concluded that ''Eupelor'' should be used for all metoposaurids from North America, especially ''

Koskinonodon ''Anaschisma'' is an extinct genus of large temnospondyl amphibians. These animals were part of the family called Metoposauridae, which filled the crocodile-like predatory niches in the late Triassic. It had large skull about long, and possi ...

'' (now known as ''

Anaschisma ''Anaschisma'' is an extinct genus of large temnospondyl amphibians. These animals were part of the family called Metoposauridae, which filled the crocodile-like predatory niches in the late Triassic. It had large skull about long, and possibly ...

''). The authors considered the trematosaur ''

Calamops ''Calamops'' is an extinct genus of large temnospondyl amphibian known from the base of the Solebury Member of the Late Triassic Newark Supergroup of Pennsylvania, United States. ''Calamops'' was first named by Sinclair in 1917 and the type spec ...

'' a possible synonym of ''Eupelor''. Later, Chowdbury (1965) subsumed ''Eupelor'' into ''Metoposaurus'' along with other North American metoposaurids. Hunt (1993), however, treated ''Eupelor'' as a dubious genus of metoposaurid due to its non-diagnostic nature.Hunt, A. P. (1993). "Revision of the Metoposauridae (Amphibia: Temnospondyli) and description of a new genus from Western North America". In: M. Morales (ed.) "Aspects of Mesozoic Geology and Paleontology of the Colorado Plateau". ''Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin''. 59: 67–97.

References

Triassic amphibians Prehistoric amphibian genera Trematosaurs {{temnospondyli-stub