A new genus and species of Devonian tetrapod, gen. et sp. nov., is described from a single complete right lower jaw ramus recovered from the mass-death deposit in the upper part of the Britta Dal Formation (upper Famennian) of Stensiö Bjerg, Gauss Peninsula, East Greenland. Visualization by propagation phase contrast synchrotron microtomography allows a complete digital dissection of the specimen. With a total jaw ramus length of 44.8 mm, is by far the smallest Devonian tetrapod described to date. It differs from all previously known Devonian tetrapods in having only a fang pair without a tooth row on the anterior coronoid and a large posterior process on the posterior coronoid. The presence of an incipient surangular crest and a concave prearticular margin to the adductor fossa together cause the fossa to face somewhat mesially, reminiscent of the condition in Carboniferous tetrapods. A phylogenetic analysis places crownward to other Devonian tetrapods, adjacent to the Tournaisian genus . Together with other recent discoveries, it suggests that diversification of 'Carboniferous-grade' tetrapods had already begun before the end of the Devonian and that the group was not greatly affected by the end-Devonian mass extinction.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.192117 | DOI Listing |
Nature
October 2024
Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
Mol Biol Evol
July 2024
School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
Ultraconserved elements were discovered two decades ago, arbitrarily defined as sequences that are identical over a length ≥ 200 bp in the human, mouse, and rat genomes. The definition was subsequently extended to sequences ≥ 100 bp identical in at least three of five mammalian genomes (including dog and cow), and shown to have undergone rapid expansion from ancestors in fish and strong negative selection in birds and mammals. Since then, many more genomes have become available, allowing better definition and more thorough examination of ultraconserved element distribution and evolutionary history.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Biol
January 2024
Dinosaur Evolution Research Center, International Center of Future Science, Jilin University, 2699 Qianjin Str., Changchun, Jilin Province 130012, China; Department of Biology, University of Toronto Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Rd., Mississauga L5L1C6, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address:
The richest and most diverse assemblage of early terrestrial tetrapods is preserved within the infilled cave system of Richards Spur, Oklahoma (289-286 Mya). Some of the oldest-known terrestrial amniotes are exquisitely preserved here because of early impregnation and encasement of organic material by oil-seep hydrocarbons within rapidly deposited clay-rich cave sediments under toxic anoxic conditions. This phenomenon has also afforded the preservation of exceedingly rare integumentary soft tissues, reported here, providing critical first evidence into the anatomical changes marking the transition from the aquatic and semiaquatic lifestyles of anamniotes to the fully terrestrial lifestyles of early amniotes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Morphol
December 2023
Laboratory of Ecology, Physiology and Functional Morphology of Higher Vertebrates, Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
We present new reconstructions of subcephalic musculature for the stem chondrichthyan Pucapampella, the tetrapodomorph fish Eusthenopteron, and the Devonian tetrapod Ichthyostega. These reconstructions are based on macroscopic dissections of the head muscles of an archaic shark Heptranchias and an archaic actinopterygian Polypterus, that are combined with functional considerations and a reappraisal of not widely known theoretical concepts from the past. The subcephalic, as well as the supracephalic, musculature is formed by four anterior myomeres.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
November 2023
Key Laboratory of Western China's Mineral Resources of Gansu Province, School of Earth Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, People's Republic of China.
The major evolutionary transition from fish to amphibian included Late Devonian tetrapods that were neither fish nor amphibian. They had thick necks and small limbs with many digits on elongate flexuous bodies more suitable for water than land. Habitats of Devonian tetrapods are of interest in assessing selective pressures on their later evolution for land within three proposed habitats: 1, tidal flats, 2, desert ponds, and 3, woodland streams.
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