Captorhinidae

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Captorhinids
Temporal range:
Ma
Fossil Captorhinus specimens
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Eureptilia
Family: †Captorhinidae
Case, 1911
Type species
†Captorhinus aguti
Genera

See text

Synonyms

Romeriidae Price, 1937

Captorhinidae is an extinct family of

Pangea
.

Description

Skull of Captorhinus kierani

Captorhinids are a clade of small to very large lizard-like animals that date from the

snout-vent length of 2 meters (6.5 feet).[2] Early, smaller forms possessed single rows of teeth, and were likely carnivorous or omnivorous, while the larger, more derived captorhinids belonging to the subfamily Moradisaurinae were herbivorous and developed multiple (up to 11) rows of teeth in the jaws alongside propalinal (back and forth) jaw motion, which created an effective apparatus for grinding and shredding plant matter.[3]

Histological and SEM analysis of captorhinid tail vertebrae concluded in a 2018 study that captorhinids were the first amniotes to develop caudal autotomy as a defensive function. In studied specimens a split line is present in certain caudal vertebrae that is similar to those found in modern reptiles that perform caudal autonomy. This behaviour represented significant evolutionary benefit for the animals, allowing for escape and distracting predators, as well as minimizing blood loss at an injury site.[4]

Discovery and history

An impression of Labidosaurikos

Euconcordia cunninghami is thought to be the basalmost known member of Captorhinidae. A phylogenic study of primitive reptile relationships by Muller & Reisz in 2006 recovered Thuringothyris as a sister taxon of the Captorhinidae.[5] The same results were obtained in later phylogenic analyses.[6][7]

Captorhinidae contains a single subfamily, the Moradisaurinae. Moradisaurinae was named and assigned to the family Captorhinidae by A. D. Ricqlès and P. Taquet in 1982. Moradisaurinae was defined as "all captorhinids more closely related to Moradisaurus than to Captorhinus". The moradisaurines inhabited what is now China, Morocco, Niger, Russia, Texas and Oklahoma.[6]

Captorhinids were once thought to be the ancestors of

parareptile or a diapsid, and therefore unrelated to captorhinids.[9][10]

Classification

Taxonomy

The following taxonomy follows Reisz et al., 2011 and Sumida et al., 2010 unless otherwise noted.[6][7]

Phylogeny

The cladogram below follows the topology from a 2011 analysis by paleontologists Robert R. Reisz, Jun Liu, Jin-Ling Li and Johannes Müller.[6]

Simões et al. (2022) recovered captorhinids as stem-amniotes instead, as the sister group to

Protorothyris archeri, while the clade including captorhinids and P. archeri was recovered as the sister group to Araeoscelidia. A cladogram from that study is shown below.[16] Using the same data matrix, Klembara et al. (2023) found a similar result.[17]

Seymouria

Amniota

Limnoscelis paludis

Diadectes

Orobates pabsti

Crown Amniota
Clade A

Araeoscelidia

Protorothyris archeri

Captorhinidae

Captorhinus aguti

Labidosaurus hamatus

Euconcordia cunninghami

Protocaptorhinus pricei

References

  1. doi:10.1098/rspb.1916.0012
    .
  2. ^ Multiple tooth-rowed captorhinids from the early Permian fissure fills of the Bally Mountain Locality of Oklahoma
  3. PMID 28417061
    .
  4. PMID 29507301
    .
  5. doi:10.1080/10635150600755396
  6. ^
    S2CID 20274349
    .
  7. ^
    S2CID 31500853
    .
  8. ^ Watson, D.M.S. (1914). "Eunotosaurus africanus Seeley and the ancestors of the Chelonia". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 11: 1011–1020.
  9. ^ "Facts About Turtles: Eunotosaurus And Turtle Evolution". All-About-Reptiles.com. Archived from the original on 12 September 2010. Retrieved 1 August 2010.
  10. PMID 26106865
    .
  11. ^ Nor-Eddine Jalil; Jean-Michel Dutuit (1996). "Permian captorhinid reptiles from the Argana formation, Morocco" (PDF). Palaeontology. 39 (4): 907–918. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-04-25.
  12. ^ W. J. May & Richard L. Cifelli (1998). "Baeotherates fortsillensis, A New Captorhinid Reptile from the Fort Sill Fissures, Lower Permian of Oklahoma". Oklahoma Geology Notes. 58: 128–137.
  13. ^ a b The Paleobiology Database: Moradisaurinae Archived 2011-10-04 at the Wayback Machine
  14. doi:10.1017/jpa.2023.85
    .
  15. doi:10.1002/spp2.1498
    .
  16. PMID 35984885
    .
  17. PMID 37733816
    .
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Captorhinidae&oldid=1215888864"