Stegotretus
| Stegotretus Temporal range: Late Carboniferous or Early Permian
| |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification Edit this classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Family: | †Pantylidae |
| Genus: | †Stegotretus Berman, Eberth & Brinkman, 1988 |
| Type species | |
| †Stegotretus agyrus Berman, Eberth & Brinkman, 1988
| |
Stegotretus is an extinct genus of microsaur referred to the Pantylidae. It is known from the Carboniferous–Permian boundary Cutler Formation exposures of New Mexico.[1]
History of study
[edit | edit source]Material now referred to Stegotretus was first described (in brief) by Eberth & Berman (1983).[2] It was formally named by Berman et al. (1988).[1] The genus name comes from the Greek stegos ('roof') and tretos ('perforated') to refer to a large fenestra found on the palatine bone. The species name, S. agyrus, is said to be derived from Greek agyrus ('gathering' / 'crowd') in reference to the concentration of all known specimens in a small area.[1] The proper word in ancient Greek for 'gathering' / 'crowd' is however agora (ἀγορά), with the variant agyris (ἄγυρις) in the Aeolic dialect.[3] The holotype and referred materials are currently reposited in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. A large number of partial to complete skulls and associated postcrania are known for this taxon.
Anatomy
[edit | edit source]Despite the large number of specimens of Stegotretus, many are poorly preserved or distorted. Stegotretus is diagnosed by the presence of only two premaxillary teeth and by a large circular fenestra on the palatine. A contact between the maxilla and the quadratojugal and the absence of an entepicondylar foramen on the humerus separate it from the purportedly closely related Pantylus.
Relationships
[edit | edit source]Stegotretus was classified as a pantylid by Berman et al. (1988). This has been validated by phylogenetic analyses that include the taxon,[4][5][6] although it is sometimes recovered as being more closely related to Sparodus than to Pantylus when all three taxa are sampled.[7] Below is the result of the analysis by Huttenlocker et al. (2013):
References
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- ^ Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie.Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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