The Permian is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period 298.9 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era; the following Triassic Period belongs to the Mesozoic Era. The concept of the Permian was introduced in 1841 by geologist Sir Roderick Murchison, who named it after the region of Perm in Russia.
Millerettidae is an extinct family of parareptiles from the Middle Permian to the Late Permian period of South Africa. The millerettids were small insectivores and probably resembled modern lizards in appearance and lifestyle.
Bolosauridae is an extinct family of parareptiles known from the latest Carboniferous (Gzhelian) or earliest Permian (Asselian) to the early Guadalupian epoch of North America, China, Germany, Russia and France. The bolosaurids were unusual for their time period by being bipedal, the oldest known tetrapods to have been so. Their teeth suggest that they were herbivores. The bolosaurids were a rare group and died out without any known descendants. The following cladogram shows the phylogenetic position of the Bolosauridae, from Johannes Müller, Jin-Ling Li and Robert R. Reisz, 2008.
Captorhinidae is an extinct family of tetrapods, typically considered primitive reptiles, known from the late Carboniferous to the Late Permian. They had a cosmopolitan distribution across Pangea.
Parareptilia ("near-reptiles") is an extinct subclass or clade of basal sauropsids/reptiles, typically considered the sister taxon to Eureptilia. Parareptiles first arose near the end of the Carboniferous period and achieved their highest diversity during the Permian period. Several ecological innovations were first accomplished by parareptiles among reptiles. These include the first reptiles to return to marine ecosystems (mesosaurs), the first bipedal reptiles, the first reptiles with advanced hearing systems, and the first large herbivorous reptiles. The only parareptiles to survive into the Triassic period were the procolophonoids, a group of small generalists, omnivores, and herbivores. The largest family of procolophonoids, the procolophonids, rediversified in the Triassic, but subsequently declined and became extinct by the end of the period.
Nyctiphruretus is an extinct genus of nyctiphruretid parareptile known from the Guadalupian series of European Russia.
Bolosaurus is an extinct genus of bolosaurid reptile from the Cisuralian epoch of North Asia and North America.
Acleistorhinidae is an extinct family of Late Carboniferous and Early Permian-aged parareptiles. Acleistorhinids are most diverse from the Richards Spur locality of the Early Permian of Oklahoma. Richards Spur acleistorhinids include Acleistorhinus, Colobomycter, and possibly Delorhynchus and Feeserpeton. Other taxa include Carbonodraco from the Late Carboniferous of Ohio and Karutia from the Early Permian of Brazil. Acleistorhinidae is commonly considered a subgroup of lanthanosuchoids, related to taxa such as Chalcosaurus, Lanthaniscus and Lanthanosuchus. However, a re-examination of parareptile phylogeny conducted by Cisneros et al. (2021) argued that lanthanosuchids were not closely related to acleistorhinids. The phylogenetic analysis conducted by these authors recovered acleistorhinids as the sister group of the clade Procolophonia, while lanthanosuchids were recovered within the procolophonian subgroup Pareiasauromorpha.
Acleistorhinus (ah-kles-toe-RYE-nuss) is an extinct genus of parareptile known from the Early Permian of Oklahoma. It is notable for being the earliest known anapsid reptile yet discovered. The morphology of the lower temporal fenestra of the skull of Acleistorhinus bears a superficial resemblance to that seen in early synapsids, a result of convergent evolution. Only a single species, A. pteroticus, is known, and it is classified in the Family Acleistorhinidae, along with Colobomycter.
Callibrachion is an extinct genus of caseid synapsids that lived in east-central France during the Lower Permian (Asselian). The holotype and only known specimen (MNHN.F.AUT490) is represented by an almost complete postcranial skeleton associated with skull fragments discovered at the end of the 19th century in the Permian Autun basin in Saône-et-Loire department, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region. It belongs to an immature individual measuring less than 1.50 m in length. Callibrachion was long considered a junior synonym of the genus Haptodus and classified among the sphenacodontid pelycosaurs. In 2015, a new study found that Callibrachion was a different animal from Haptodus and that it was a caseasaur rather than a sphenacodontid. This was confirmed in 2016 by a cladistic analysis which recovered Callibrachion as a basal caseid. Callibrachion's sharp teeth and unenlarged ribcage indicate that this animal was likely faunivorous.
Broomia is an extinct genus of millerettid parareptile from the Middle Permian of South Africa. It was originally described by D. M. S. Watson.
Milleropsis is an extinct genus of millerettid parareptile from the Late Permian of South Africa.
Microleter is an extinct genus of basal procolophonomorph parareptiles which lived in Oklahoma during the Early Permian period. The type and only known species is Microleter mckinzieorum. Microleter is one of several parareptile taxa described from the Richards Spur fissure fills, and can be characterized from its high tooth count, lacrimal/narial contact, short postfrontal, and slit-like temporal emargination edged by the postorbital, jugal, squamosal, and quadratojugal. Contrary to Australothyris, which had a similar phylogenetic position as a basal procolophonomorph, Microleter suggests that early parareptile evolution occurred in Laurasia and that multiple lineages developed openings or emarginations in the temporal region.
Euconcordia is an extinct genus of Late Carboniferous captorhinid known from Greenwood County, Kansas of the United States.
Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 2012.
Sinophoneus is an extinct genus of carnivorous dinocephalian therapsid belonging to the family Anteosauridae. It lived 272 to 270 million years ago at the beginning of the Middle Permian in what is now the Gansu Province in northern China. It is known by a skull of an adult individual, as well as by many skulls of juvenile specimens. The latter were first considered as belonging to a different animal, named Stenocybus, before being reinterpreted as immature Sinophoneus. Sinophoneus shows a combination of characters present in other anteosaurs. Its bulbous profile snout and external nostrils located in front of the canine are reminiscent of the basal anteosaur Archaeosyodon, while its massive transverse pterygoids processes with enlarged distal ends are more similar to the more derived anteosaurs Anteosaurus and Titanophoneus. First phylogenetic analyzes identified Sinophoneus as the most basal Anteosaurinae. A more recent analysis positioned it outside the Anteosaurinae and Syodontinae subclades, and recovers it as the most basal Anteosauridae.
Ankyramorpha is an extinct clade of procolophonomorph parareptiles which lived between the early Cisuralian epoch and the latest Triassic period of Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America.
Lanthanosuchoidea is an extinct superfamily of ankyramorph parareptiles from the middle Pennsylvanian to the middle Guadalupian epoch of Europe, North America and Asia. It was named by the Russian paleontologist Ivachnenko in 1980, and it contains two families Acleistorhinidae and Lanthanosuchidae.
Lanthaniscus is an extinct genus of lanthanosuchoid ankyramorph parareptile known from the Guadalupian epoch of Eastern Europe, Russia. Lanthaniscus was first named by M. F. Ivakhnenko in 1980 and the type species is Lanthaniscus efremovi. L. efremovi was originally described on the basis of the holotype PIN 3706/9 from Peza-1 locality, Krasnoshchel' Formation, of Arkhangelsk. Various authors had assigned it to the family Lanthanosuchidae; however, Ivakhnenko, who described an additional specimen of L. efremovi in 2008, assigned Lanthaniscus to its own family, the Lanthaniscidae. The additional specimen PIN 4543/2, was collected from the same formation as the holotype, from the Nisogora locality, which is slightly younger in age.
Procolophoninae is an extinct subfamily of procolophonid parareptiles from the late Early Triassic to the early Middle Triassic of Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe and South America. Currently, the oldest-known procolophonine is Procolophon from the earliest Olenekian stage.
