Pholiderpeton

Pholiderpeton (from Greek: φολῐ́δος folĭdos, 'horny scale' and Greek: ἑρπετόν herpetón, 'creeping thing') is an extinct genus of embolomere amphibian which lived in the Late Carboniferous period (Bashkirian) of England. The genus was first named by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1869 to include the species P. scutigerum, based on the disarticulated front half of a skeleton discovered near Bradford, Yorkshire. Associated fossil wood suggests that this specimen died inside a Lepidodendron tree trunk.[1]

Pholiderpeton
Temporal range:
Restoration
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: †Embolomeri
Family: †Eogyrinidae
Genus: †Pholiderpeton
Huxley, 1869
Type species
Pholiderpeton scutigerum
Huxley, 1869
Other species
  • Pholiderpeton attheyi? (Watson, 1926; formerly Eogyrinus)

In 1987, Jennifer A. Clack suggested that a different embolomere, Eogyrinus attheyi from Newsham, Northumberland, belonged to the same genus as Pholiderpeton. She subsumed the genus Eogyrinus into Pholiderpeton and created the new combination P. attheyi.[1] The anatomy of "Eogyrinus" attheyi has been described in detail by A.L. Panchen.[2][3] Some phylogenetic analyses, such as those by Marcello Ruta & Michael Coates (2007) and David Marjanović & Michel Laurin (2019), have argued that Pholiderpeton scutigerum and "Eogyrinus" attheyi were not closely related to each other. However, neither publication reinstated the genus Eogyrinus.[4][5]

Pholiderpeton scutigerum measured 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) in length, while specimens of P. attheyi could measure up to 4.6 metres (15 ft) long. The latter species was thus among the largest Carboniferous tetrapods, and perhaps one of the largest of its family, the Eogyrinidae.[6]

References
  1. Clack, J.A. (1987). "Pholiderpeton scutigerum Huxley, an amphibian from the Yorkshire coal measures". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences. 318 (1188): 1–107. doi:10.1098/rstb.1987.0082.
  2. Panchen, A. L. (1966). "The axial skeleton of the labyrinthodont Eogyrinus attheyi". Journal of Zoology. 150 (2): 199–222. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.1966.tb03004.x.
  3. Panchen, A. L. (10 February 1972). "The skull and skeleton of Eogyrinus attheyi Watson (Amphibia: Labyrinthodontia)". Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. 263 (851): 279–326. doi:10.1098/rstb.1972.0002. ISSN 0080-4622.
  4. Ruta, M.; Coates, M.I. (2007). "Dates, nodes and character conflict: addressing the lissamphibian origin problem". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 5 (1): 69–122. doi:10.1017/S1477201906002008. S2CID 86479890.
  5. Marjanović, D.; Laurin, M. (2019). "Phylogeny of Paleozoic limbed vertebrates reassessed through revision and expansion of the largest published relevant data matrix". PeerJ. 6 (e5565): 1–191. doi:10.7717/peerj.5565. PMID 30631641.
  6. Palmer, D., ed. (1999). The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals. London: Marshall Editions. p. 53. ISBN 1-84028-152-9.


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