''Nanobamus'' 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 ...

amphibamiform Amphibamiformes is an unranked clade with Dissorophoidea created by Schoch (2018). It encompasses all of the taxa traditionally considered to be "amphibamids" (subsequently restricted to '' Doleserpeton annectens'' and '' Amphibamus grandiceps'' ...

temnospondyl Temnospondyli (from Greek τέμνειν, ''temnein'' 'to cut' and σπόνδυλος, ''spondylos'' 'vertebra') is a diverse order of small to giant tetrapods—often considered primitive amphibians—that flourished worldwide during the Carbo ...

amphibian. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

is ''Nanobamus macrorhinus''. The

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes th ...

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 ...

VP 3686, a skull recovered from the Lower

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), 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 ...

Arroyo Formation (

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

History of study

UCLA VP 3686 was originally described by Olson (1985) as a larval " trematopsid" (now called 'trematopids'). Much of this referral was based on the elongate external naris, a feature that is well known in derived trematopids such as ''

Acheloma ''Acheloma'' (also known as ''Trematops milleri'') is an extinct genus of temnospondyl that lived during the Early Permian. The type species is ''A. cumminsi''. History of study ''Acheloma'' was named by Edward Drinker Cope in 1882 based o ...

,'' although the feature is not exclusive to trematopids or universally found in all trematopids. This identification was challenged by Dilkes (1991), who noted that the construction of the naris was different from that of trematopids, implying convergence on this feature. Dilkes argued that while the specimen was clearly a dissorophoid, it could not be referred to a particular dissorophoid family. Schoch (2002) briefly noted that the specimen was "clearly an amphibamid amphibamiform' in the current framework" The specimen was formally recognized as the type specimen of a new amphibamiform genus and species, ''Nanobamus macrorhinus'', by Schoch & Milner (2014).

Anatomy

Schoch & Milner (2014) list six characters in their diagnosis of ''N. macrorhinus'': (1) naris extending posterior to the septomaxilla, with the shape of a sideways '8'; (2) narrow interorbital distance; (3) large postfrontal; (4) frontal twice as wide anteriorly as it is posteriorly; (5) large denticle field extending onto the base of the cultriform process; (6) slender basipterygoid process of the pterygoid extending onto the basal plate of the parasphenoid.

References

Amphibamids Dissorophids Prehistoric amphibian genera Cisuralian temnospondyls of North America Fossil taxa described in 2014 Paleontology in Texas {{temnospondyli-stub