A small, pristinely preserved specimen recently collected from the Dolese Brothers limestone quarry near Richards Spur, Oklahoma provides evidence for the presence of a new early Permian parareptile at this locality. The specimen includes an articulated, nearly complete skull roof, and with the right premaxilla, right quadratojugal, most of the right palate, as well as the right epipterygoid and the sphenethmoid preserved inside. Although similar in many respects to the other contemporary parareptiles , and , it can be distinguished from other acleistorhinids by the presence of a number of autapomorphies related to its dentition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUpper Permian rocks of the former supercontinent Gondwana record climax late Paleozoic terrestrial vertebrate faunas that were dominated numerically and ecologically by therapsid synapsids. Older faunal elements of earlier Paleozoic faunas, such as captorhinid reptiles, are rare and scattered components of the first amniote faunas to inhabit high-latitude regions. Here we describe a new genus and species of moradisaurine captorhinid that represents an archaic faunal element of the high-fibre herbivore fauna of the late Permian of what is now peninsular India.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFModern-day terrestrial amphibians pale in comparison to their monstrous ancient relatives, the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian trematopid temnospondyls. With a skeleton that clearly indicated a terrestrial mode of life and armed with an impressive set of large, recurved marginal dentition and palatal fangs for holding their prey-this group of terrestrial temnospondyls roamed North America and Central Europe as a top predator. Lack of substantial informative fossil material has previously limited our understanding of trematopid diversity and ontogeny.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe study of morphological characteristics and growth information in fish scales is a crucial component of modern fishery biological research, while it has been less studied in fossil materials. This paper presents a detailed morphological description and growth analysis of a fossil ctenoid scale obtained from the Upper Cretaceous Campanian lacustrine deposits in northeastern China. The morphological features of this fossil scale are well-preserved and consistent with the structures found in ctenoid scales of extant fish species and display prominent ring ornamentation radiating outward from the central focus, with grooves intersecting the rings.
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