| Cladarosymblema Temporal range: Early Carboniferous | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Sarcopterygii |
| Clade: | Tetrapodomorpha |
| Clade: | † Megalichthyiformes |
| Family: | † Megalichthyidae |
| Genus: | † Cladarosymblema Fox et al., 1995 |
| Species: | †C. narrienense |
| Binomial name | |
| †Cladarosymblema narrienense Fox et al., 1995 | |
Cladarosymblema is an extinct genus of megalichthyid tetrapodomorphs which lived in Australia during the Early Carboniferous.
The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period 358.9 Ma to the beginning of the Permian Period, 298.9 Ma. In North America, the Carboniferous is often treated as two separate geological periods, the earlier Mississippian and the later Pennsylvanian.
A tetrapod is any four-limbed vertebrate animal of the superclass Tetrapoda. Tetrapods include all extant and extinct amphibians and amniotes, with the latter in turn evolving into two major clades, the sauropsids and synapsids. Some tetrapods such as snakes, legless lizards, and caecilians had evolved to become limbless via mutations of the Hox gene, although some do still have a pair of vestigial spurs that are remnants of the hindlimbs.
Baphetidae is an extinct family of stem-tetrapods. Baphetids were large labyrinthodont predators of the Late Carboniferous period of Europe. Fragmentary remains from the Early Carboniferous of Canada have been tentatively assigned to the group. The phylogenetic relationships of baphetids is uncertain; while many studies have placed the group as a close relative of Amniota, other analyses have found Baphetidae to be a more basal clade of early stem tetrapods. Baphetids were among the first of the Carboniferous fossil tetrapods to be found and were originally described in 1850 by John William Dawson. The baphetids have been referred to the family Loxommatidae, but this group was later shown to be a junior synonym of Baphetidae, which was named earlier in 1865. Baphetids are known mainly from skulls; very little postcranial material has been found.
Sarcopterygii — sometimes considered synonymous with Crossopterygii — is a taxon of the bony fish known as the lobe-finned fish or sarcopterygians, characterised by prominent muscular limb buds (lobes) within the fins, which are supported by articulated appendicular skeletons. This is in contrast to the other clade of bony fish, the Actinopterygii, which have only skin-covered bony spines (lepidotrichia) supporting the fins.
Eusthenopteron is a genus of prehistoric sarcopterygian which has attained an iconic status from its close relationships to tetrapods. Early depictions of this animal show it emerging onto land; however, paleontologists now widely agree that it was a strictly aquatic animal. The genus Eusthenopteron is known from several species that lived during the Late Devonian period, about 385 million years ago. Eusthenopteron was first described by J. F. Whiteaves in 1881, as part of a large collection of fishes from Miguasha, Quebec. Some 2,000 Eusthenopteron specimens have been collected from Miguasha, one of which was the object of intensely detailed study and several papers from the 1940s to the 1990s by paleoichthyologist Erik Jarvik.
The Tetrapodomorpha are a clade of vertebrates consisting of tetrapods and their closest sarcopterygian relatives that are more closely related to living tetrapods than to living lungfish. Advanced forms transitional between fish and the early labyrinthodonts, such as Tiktaalik, have been referred to as "fishapods" by their discoverers, being half-fish, half-tetrapods, in appearance and limb morphology. The Tetrapodomorpha contains the crown group tetrapods and several groups of early stem tetrapods, which includes several groups of related lobe-finned fishes, collectively known as the osteolepiforms. The Tetrapodomorpha minus the crown group Tetrapoda are the stem Tetrapoda, a paraphyletic unit encompassing the fish to tetrapod transition.
Ophiderpeton is an extinct genus of aistopod tetrapodomorphs from the early Carboniferous to the early Permian. Remains of this genus are widespread and were found in Ohio, United States, Ireland, and the Czech Republic.
Tristichopterids (Tristichopteridae) were a diverse and successful group of tetrapodomorph fishes living throughout the Middle and Late Devonian. They first appeared in the Eifelian stage of the Middle Devonian. Within the group sizes ranged from a few tens of centimeters (Tristichopterus) to several meters.
Rhizodontida is an extinct group of predatory tetrapodomorphs known from many areas of the world from the Givetian through to the Pennsylvanian - the earliest known species is about 377 million years ago (Mya), the latest around 310 Mya. Rhizodonts lived in tropical rivers and freshwater lakes and were the dominant predators of their age. They reached huge sizes - the largest known species, Rhizodus hibberti from Europe and North America, was an estimated 7 m in length, making it the largest freshwater fish known.
Rhizodus is an extinct genus of basal, finned tetrapodomorphs. It belonged to Rhizodontida, one of the earliest-diverging tetrapodomorph clades. Two valid species have been described, both of which lived during the Early Carboniferous epoch. The type species R. hibberti is known from the Viséan stage of the United Kingdom, whereas the species R. serpukhovensis is from the Serpukhovian of Russia. Some fossils referred to the genus Rhizodus have also been found in North America.
Megalichthyidae is an extinct family of tetrapodomorphs which lived from the Middle–Late Devonian to the Early Permian. They are known primarily from freshwater deposits, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, but one genus (Cladarosymblema) is known from Australia, and the possible megalichthyid Mahalalepis is from Antarctica.
Osteolepididae is a family of primitive, fish-like tetrapodomorphs that lived during the Devonian period. The family is generally thought to be paraphyletic, with the traits that characterise the family being widely distributed among basal tetrapodomorphs and other osteichthyans. Some of genera historically placed in Osteolepididae have more recently been assigned to the family Megalichthyidae, which appears to be a monophyletic group.
Letognathus is a genus of rhizodont tetrapodomorph that lived during the Carboniferous period. Its remains come from the Blue Beach Member of the Horton Bluff Formation, near Hantsport, Nova Scotia. Like most rhizodonts, it was of relatively large size, had a large recurved fang at the symphysis of the lower jaw, and a row of three coronoid fangs along the length of the jaw in addition to its marginal dentition. Letognathus is important for rhizodont systematics because it retains a number of primitive features, such as ossified Meckel's cartilage, are not found in the genera Rhizodus and Strepsodus.
Mahalalepis is a genus of prehistoric lobe-finned fish which lived during the Devonian period.
Coloraderpeton is an extinct genus of aïstopod tetrapodomorphs within the family Oestocephalidae. Coloraderpeton is known from the Carboniferous Sangre de Cristo Formation of Colorado, and was initially known from vertebrae, ribs, and scales recovered from a UCLA field expedition in 1966. Peter Paul Vaughn described these remains in 1969. A skull was later reported in an unpublished 1983 thesis and formally described by Jason S. Anderson in 2003.
Marsdenichthys is an extinct genus of Devonian tetrapodomorph. Fossils have been found from Mount Howitt in Victoria, Australia from strata that are Givetian-Frasnian in age. Mount Howitt is an important site that has been the source of many tetrapodomorph fossils, including Beelarongia and Howittichthys, both of which were first described from the locality.
Calligenethlon is an extinct genus of embolomere tetrapodomorphs from the Late Carboniferous of Joggins, Nova Scotia. It is the only definitively identified embolomere from the Joggins Fossil Cliffs and is the largest tetrapod to have been found preserved in lycopod tree stumps.
Eotetrapodiformes is a clade of tetrapodomorphs including the four-limbed vertebrates and their closest finned relatives, two groups of stem tetrapods called tristichopterids and elpistostegalids.
Tungsenia is an extinct genus of basal tetrapodomorph bony fish known from the ~409 mya of northeastern Yunnan Province, China. Its remains were discovered in the Posongchong Formation. It is the basalmost known tetrapodomorph.
Andersonerpeton is an extinct genus of aïstopod from the Bashkirian of Nova Scotia, Canada. It is known from a single jaw, which shares an unusual combination of features from both other aistopods and from stem-tetrapod tetrapodomorph fish. As a result, Andersonerpeton is significant for supporting a new classification scheme which states that aistopods evolved much earlier than previously expected. The genus contains a single species, A. longidentatum, which was previously believed to have been a species of the microsaur Hylerpeton.
Clement AM, Cloutier R, Lu J, Perilli E, Maksimenko A, Long J. 2021. A fresh look at Cladarosymblema narrienense, a tetrapodomorph fish (Sarcopterygii: Megalichthyidae) from the Carboniferous of Australia, illuminated via X-ray tomography. PeerJ 9:e12597 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12597
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