Bolosauridae

Bolosauridae Temporal range: Latest Carboniferous or earliest Permian to Middle Permian, 298.9–268  Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Life restoration of Belebey vegrandis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Amniota
Clade:	Sauropsida
Family:	† Bolosauridae Cope, 1878

Bolosauridae is an extinct family of amniotes known from the latest Carboniferous (Gzhelian) or earliest Permian (Asselian) to the early Guadalupian epoch (latest Roadian stage) of North America, China, Germany, Russia and France. ^{[1] [2]} 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.

Traditionally considered "parareptiles", a 2025 study suggests the Bolosauridae are instead a family of basal sauropsids outside of Neoreptilia. ^[3]

The following cladogram shows the phylogenetic position of the Bolosauridae, from Johannes Müller, Jin-Ling Li and Robert R. Reisz, 2008. ^[4]

Bolosauridae	Eudibamus cursoris Bolosaurus Bolosaurus grandis Bolosaurus striatus Belebey Belebey chengi Belebey maximi Belebey vegrandis

References

1. Marcello Ruta; Juan C. Cisneros; Torsten Liebrect; Linda A. Tsuji; Johannes Muller (2011). "Amniotes through major biological crises: faunal turnover among Parareptiles and the end-Permian mass extinction". Palaeontology. 54 (5): 1117–1137. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2011.01051.x .
2. Jocelyn Falconnet (2012). "First evidence of a bolosaurid parareptile in France (latest Carboniferous-earliest Permian of the Autun basin) and the spatiotemporal distribution of the Bolosauridae" . Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France. 183 (6): 495–508. doi:10.2113/gssgfbull.183.6.495.
3. Jenkins, Xavier A; Benson, Roger BJ; Ford, David P; Browning, Claire; Fernandez, Vincent; Dollman, Kathleen; Gomes, Timothy; Griffiths, Elizabeth; Choiniere, Jonah N; Peecook, Brandon R (28 August 2025). "Evolutionary assembly of crown reptile anatomy clarified by late Paleozoic relatives of Neodiapsida". Peer Community Journal. 5 e89. doi: 10.24072/pcjournal.620 . eISSN   2804-3871. S2CID   274305322.
4. Johannes Müller; Jin-Ling Li & Robert R. Reisz (2008). "A new bolosaurid parareptile, Belebey chengi sp. nov., from the Middle Permian of China and its paleogeographic significance". Naturwissenschaften. 95 (12): 1169–1174. doi:10.1007/s00114-008-0438-0. PMID   18726080.