Protorothyrididae
Protorothyrididae | ||||||||||||
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Life picture of Protorothyris archeri |
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Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
Upper Carboniferous and Lower Permian | ||||||||||||
315 to 279 million years | ||||||||||||
Locations | ||||||||||||
Systematics | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name | ||||||||||||
Protorothyrididae | ||||||||||||
Price , 1937 |
The Protorothyrididae ( Syn .: Protorothyridae ) are a group of extinct reptiles from the Upper Carboniferous and Lower Permian . Finds of these animals come from Nova Scotia in eastern Canada and were found in hollow shed trees . The best-known species are Hylonomus lyelli and Paleothyris acadiana , both about eight inches long.
Due to the characteristics of the dentition and the small size, the Protorothyrididae were likely insect hunters . The skeleton of the chest and neck area was very strong. The shoulder blade and the coracoid were fused into a scapulocoracoid , in front of which a thin collarbone and a cleithrum lay. The latter is no longer present in modern reptiles.
Systematics
The Protorothyrididae are assigned to the anapsids in the traditional system because of their missing skull windows . As primitive representatives without skull windows they belong to the clade leading to the diapsids . This clade is called Eureptilia in cladistics .
Subordinate taxa
literature
- Wolfgang Böhme, Martin Sander: Protorothyrididae. In: Wilfried Westheide , Reinhard Rieger : Special Zoology. Volume 2: Vertebrates or Skull Animals. Spectrum - Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg et al. 2004, ISBN 3-8274-0307-3 , p. 344.
- ↑ Michael SY Lee: Molecules, morphology, and the monophyly of diapsid reptiles. In: Contributions to Zoology. Vol. 70, No. 1, 2001, pp. 1-22, online .