Alveusdectes
| Alveusdectes | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Order: | †Diadectomorpha |
| Family: | †Diadectidae |
| Genus: | †Alveusdectes Liu and Bever, 2015 |
| Type species | |
| †Alveusdectes fenestralis Liu and Bever, 2015
| |
Alveusdectes is an extinct
Early Permian. By the Late Permian many other groups of tetrapods had entered that niche, and increased competition among herbivores likely resulted in the eventual extinction of diadectids. Alveusdectes may have been able to persist because the fauna of north China seems to have been isolated from other Laurasian faunas during the Late Permian, meaning that fewer herbivores were competing for the same ecological space.[2]
Alveusdectes differs from other diadectids in having a pair of large holes at the back of its skull called
phylogenetic analysis of diadectids and found it to be most closely related to Desmatodon, Diadectes, and Diasparactus. Since Desmatodon lived about 302 million years ago, the branch leading to Alveusdectes must have been isolated from other diadectids for at least 46 million years, creating a long ghost lineage of diadectids extending back into the Late Carboniferous for which no fossil record is known. Below is a cladogram from Liu and Bever (2015) showing these relationships:[2]
| Diadectomorpha |
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References
- ^ Liu, J.; Xu, L.; Jia, S.-H.; Pu, H.-Y.; Liu, X.-L. (2014). "The Jiyuan tetrapod fauna of the Upper Permian of China - 2. stratigraphy, taxonomical review, and correlation" (PDF). Vertebrata PalAsiatica. 52 (3): 328–339.
- ^ PMID 25948572.