''Lysorophus'' is a genus of

Lysorophia Lysorophia is an order of fossorial Carboniferous and Permian tetrapods within the Recumbirostra. Lysorophians resembled small snakes, as their bodies are extremely elongate. There is a single family, the Molgophidae (previously known as Lysoro ...

, extinct

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 Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleoz ...

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 ...

tetrapods 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 ...

. Most of the specimens are found from

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

and attributed to the first formally described species ''Lysorophus tricarinatus'' due to the lack of diagnostic characters, but several other species have been described. ''Lysorophus'' were small

salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten ...

-like amphibians. They lived in

fresh water Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...

, aestivating in burrows during dry periods.Hembree, D.I. et al., Amphibian burrows and ephemeral ponds of the Lower Permian Speiser Shale, Kansas: evidence for seasonality in the midcontinentPalaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 203 (2004) p.127-152

References

Lysorophians Permian amphibians Permian amphibians of North America Taxa named by Edward Drinker Cope Fossil taxa described in 1877 {{Lepospondyli-stub