Lysorophidae
| Lysorophia | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||||||||||
| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Carboniferous ( Pennsylvania ) to Lower Permian ( Cisuralium ) | ||||||||||||
| 323.2 to 272.3 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Lysorophia | ||||||||||||
| Romer , 1930 |
The Lysorophia are a fossil taxon of amphibian-like terrestrial vertebrates . They are classified in the group of heath vertebrae (Lepospondyli) and lived in North America and possibly also in Europe during the late Carboniferous to the early Permian .
features
The animals had elongated bodies with up to 99 holospondyles (a coil-shaped vertebral body consisting of a single ossification) vertebrae and greatly reduced limbs. The tail was short and had hemostrums . There was no bony skin armor. The very open skull had large skull windows and large orbits . The maxillary and premaxillary were relatively flexible. The foramen of the parietal bone was missing. The lower jaw was short and had a window on each side. The dentition was not labyrinthodont . They had no teeth on the ploughshare and palatine bone . A number of skull bones, such as post-frontals , post- orbitals, supratemporals, zygomatic bones, quadratojugals, ectopterygoid, coronoid bones and post- plenials were missing. The parasphenoid was wide. The head-side articular surface of the atlas was wider than the body-side.
The Lysorophia are highly derived compared to other Paleozoic amphibian-like animals. They are probably closely related to the Microsauria . However, they also share synapomorphies with today's amphibians ( Lissamphibia ).
literature
- Robert L. Carroll : Paleontology and Evolution of the Vertebrates , Thieme, Stuttgart (1993), ISBN 3-13-774401-6
